Shampoo Planet

Contemporary novel about Global Teens, generational conflict, and 1990s youth culture

Hardcover

1st

1st

First Person

Fiction

299

2018-06-26 18:29:44

Shampoo Planet is Douglas Coupland’s second novel and a thematic follow‑up to Generation X. It follows Tyler Johnson, a twenty‑year‑old ”Global Teen” and ambitious hotel‑management student whose memories begin with the Reagan era and whose life is steeped in consumer brands, rock videos, and corporate aspirations. Raised in a hippie commune by his Woodstock‑era mother Jasmine, Tyler now lives in a decaying Pacific Northwest mill town and works at a nearby nuclear power plant—the same place his parents once protested. Over six months, the story tracks his return home from a European trip and the upheaval that follows: his stepfather Dan, a hard‑driving land developer, announces a divorce; Jasmine struggles with middle age and the loss of 1960s ideals; and Tyler juggles relationships with Anna‑Louise, his driven, anxious American girlfriend, and Stephanie, the glamorous low‑ambition Euro‑teen from his Paris summer affair. The narrative moves through Paris, Jim Morrison’s grave, wild islands off British Columbia, redwood forests in Northern California, a garish Hollywood, an ultra‑modern Seattle, and finally back to his hometown. Along the way, Tyler navigates toxic waste sites, clear‑cut forests, corporate recruiting pitches, and an endless stream of media images, trying to reconcile his parents’ counterculture legacy with his own desire for money, stability, and a future. The novel captures the early‑1990s mood of globalization, environmental anxiety, and generational confusion, offering a satiric yet empathetic portrait of youth coming of age at the close of the twentieth century.

Pocket Books

9780671755065

United States

1992-01-01

1992

1992

25746138

1

English

New York

Yes

~$15.96

2026-03-03

2018-06-26 18:29:44