Shampoo Planet [Hardcover]

Douglas Coupland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 8, 1995

An amazing visionary first novel about today's disenfranchised, MTV twenty-something generation and their baby boom parents, by the author of the hugely successful Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture--a Tom Robbins for the '90s who has made the cynical post-Reagan era his own. A 20-year-old's journey around America, Canada, and Paris helps him deal with the bewildering influences that confront him.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Just a year after the cult success of his Generation X , with its tales of 20-somethings, Coupland takes on the vid-kids one dance-step younger. With hair-care perfection and spot-on irony, Tyler Johnson, this book's narrator, emerges from his hippie mom's two divorces and his hometown circle of friends to wander Europe ("I'm overdosing on history here"). But once he's safely back home and with his steady girfriend Anna-Louise, his Euro-fling babe Stephanie shows up and unleashes a wanderlust he thought he'd filed away. Tyler, whose entrepreneurial goals are tidy as his hair, finds himself on the road, seeing the motor lodge vistas of his own land ("Convenience stores--the economic engine of the New Order"), and finally landing in his "personal Dark Ages" at a "McJob" on the wing computer at an L.A. WingWorld. In the final pages, as this post-Cold War Kerouac comes of age, Coupland returns to his book's road-novel roots, and finds there a rich and surprising love story. Coupland can dazzle through the cultural info-nonsense with channel-clicking speed, and here he has again captured the brood that grew up on cable and eco-disaster. His young central characters are cynically at ease with the apocalypse in a way that is brave and addictive. This funny, sympathetic and offhandedly brilliant book should become the program guide for Club MTV.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Still a cultural pulse-taker, Coupland (Generation X, 1991) organizes his hip bromides and next-wave sententiousness into a rather humdrum narrative that's long on posturing, short on plot. Laughing at disaster, Coupland's post-post-baby-boomers rationalize the culture of constant change, self-reinvention, and immediate gratification. Tyler Johnson, the 20-year-old narrator whose ``memories begin with Ronald Reagan,'' is an apocalyptic entrepreneur, a hotel-motel studies major who believes wholeheartedly in a boundless future, one he hopes to see as an employee for a northwestern conglomerate presided over by his personal hero, the CEO author of Life at the Top. A smart and glib media savant, Tyler speaks ``telethon-ese'' with his girlfriend and dubs his room at home the ``modernarium.'' His mother, Jasmine, a hippie with armpit hair and a ``predilection for substance enthusiasts,'' represents everything that was wrong (in Tyler's view) about the Sixties. His grandparents, on the other hand, hoard their wealth and greedily pursue their pyramid sales scheme, marketing a cat food ``system.'' Meanwhile, Tyler's summer fling in Paris comes to haunt him. The haughty and selfish Stephanie, one of the ``low-ambition Euro-teens'' he met on vacation, convinces him to move to L.A. with her in pursuit of fame and riches. Their adventures on the road include a visit to the commune where Tyler was born and a nightmarish stay at his father's drug farm. In L.A., Tyler works a fast-food ``McJob,'' while Stephanie secretly finds a sugar-daddy. Chastened by his low-life in la-la-land, Tyler returns home, rewarded with a dream job and a happier family. This TV/computer/video-savvy fiction is a frank celebration of life as a series of theme parks. Coupland's social commentary is, at its worst, fortune-cookie profound and, at best, a gloss on the Zeitgeist. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (July 8, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517154730
• ISBN-13: 978-0517154731
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,548,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Life changes and moving on in order to grow up-- it hit home, May 8, 1998

By 

J. D. Allen "jd_allen" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shampoo Planet (Paperback)

As I finished reading this book in the back of a warehouse -- one of the several McJobs I held down at the time -- I wept. Some may not be moved as I was, but not everybody has the same reference points that allow them to see parallels between Tyler's life and their own. Tyler's experience, I have to think, is similar to many in their mid-20s. It is a time when you decide what you're really going to do with your life, determine what is really important to you, move on and grow up if you have to. Sometimes you realign your goals to grow up. Sometimes you leave your girlfriend -- no matter how hard -- to grow up. Tyler's shift in hair care products symbolizes his... oh well read the book for that.

I liked Shampoo Planet. It wasn't Catcher In The Rye, but it was my World and I think many who are orbiting in that same lifestage will relate to it too.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty, Humorous, and Fun!, December 22, 2004

By 

CreepyT "CreepyTendencies" (Colorado, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Shampoo Planet (Paperback)

Douglas Coupland definitely has an amazing way with words and a knowledge of the conundrum felt by those in their late teens and early twenties. Parents simply don't understand. How could they? They are from a different era. A simpler era. What do they know of the current zeitgeist? Such is the thought process of so many youngsters trying to find their place and discover their purpose in a world overwrought with technology and consumerism. Thus, such are the thought processes of Tyler and his odd array of peers in this amazing novel. Can Tyler and his mother find some way to work out their differences, and is there some lesson to be learned from a washed up hippie?

Shampoo Planet begins with Tyler's mother, Jasmine, waking up to find the word "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" written across her forehead. From this point forth, Jasmine and Tyler both set sail on a roller coaster ride of self-discovery, seeking to reclaim their self-worth from a new perspective. From the small, cozy town of Lancaster, Washington, in which many suffer from the closing of "the Plants," Tyler branches out seeking what else life has to offer. Using his ambition as his fuel, Tyler aims towards escape from the mundane.

We learn of Tyler's trip to Europe, during which he met an opportunistic French girl named Stephanie, and from whom he will learn to appreciate the past. Once Tyler returns home, we are introduced to his sister Daisy, who seems eager to escape the present by living vicariously with her boyfriend through her mother's days as a hippie. Tyler's now-ex-step-father, Dan, would rather create false realities than face his true existence. Tyler's grandparents have lost their money and are trying desperately to regain their societal stature by becoming involved in a pyramid scheme. We also learn of Tyler's post-feminist girlfriend, Anna-Louise, whose aim is to help Tyler get through college and achieve his dream of becoming a big-wig for a large corporation, and whom Tyler seems unwilling or incapable of acknowledging the fact that she has an eating disorder.

Tyler later reconnects with his summer fling, Stephanie, who, after stirring up controversy between Anna-Louise and Tyler, convinces him to venture to California in attempt to "make it big" as a photographer. On the way south, Tyler pays an uncomfortable visit to his estranged biological father. Once in Hollywood, Tyler realizes that the "good life" isn't easily handed to you on a silver platter.

Though Tyler and his friends are living in a time of modernity and seemingly shallow introversion, where "what's on top of your head says what's inside your head," there is really more to them than meets the eye. Disillusioned by magazines and television into believing a romanticized version of the future exists, one in which people really do get what they want and are actually happy with mere material possessions, Tyler clearly has a lot to learn.

Coupland's writing is chock full of witty banter and intelligent, humorous analogies that make for a highly entertaining read for those of any generation. The cast of well-rounded, realistic characters is simply unforgettable. Coupland has several good points to get across and he knows how to do so in a way that is easily accessible, extremely fun, and profoundly lighthearted. This is definitely not the last Coupland book I will pick up. Very highly recommended!

"Clean hair; clean body; clean mind; clean life. You could become famous at any moment and your whole personal history could be unearthed. And then what would they find? Turn on the shower" (Coupland, 133).

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Life after shampoo, October 11, 2004

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shampoo Planet (Paperback)

Douglas Coupland made his biggest mark on literature with "Generation X," a witty satire on the jaded "Gen-Xers." This time, we have one instead of several, but Coupland's writing might be even tighter because of that. Witty, unpredictable and full of Coupland's little flickers of bitterness and sweetness.

Things start to go awry when ex-hippie Jasmice wakes up with "divorce" written on her forehead. Ambitious twenty-year-old Tyler is a living anti-hippie, devoted to hair-care, sleek technology and big corporations. He considers Jasmine the living figure of sixties idiocy, but he consoles his mother about her rotten husband's departure.

As he comforts Jasmine, he contemplates his own life, his sweet girlfriend Anna Louise, and his oddball family, which was based in a weird hippie commune when he was little. Things in Tyler's life are disrupted when the haughty Stephanie, a summer fling, comes to visit -- and stay. Tyler travels with his fling-turned-new-girlfriend to California, but finds himself more alone than he has ever been before.

In this book, Coupland takes a look at a small group of people -- young, intelligent college graduates who aren't sure whether to follow their dreams, or chain themselves to a big corporation. Don't worry -- it's not half as boring as it sounds. Coupland keeps the book vibrant with snotty Europeans, scraggly ex-hippies and the offspring they drive crazy.

Theme aside, Coupland has a way of tugging at the heartstrings, without becoming really sentimental, and reminds us that "the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself." His writing is sharp, solid and strangely evocative of a split world: half sand candles and flowers, half leather furniture and big-screen TVs. And he has a unique sense of humor -- he doesn't make readers really laugh, but just exposes the absurd side of things.

Tyler starts off superficial and rather snotty, and he spends much of the book doing the wrong thing. But Coupland makes him grow up slowly, making him see the worth of people he thought were freakish before. Not to mention his long-suffering girlfriend Anna Louise, who is obviously The Girl for Tyler. Jasmine is a very real portrait of an aging hippie -- full of life and sweetness, yet incredibly naive.

Douglas Coupland's "Shampoo Planet" tackles some of the same turf as "Generation X," yet it gets more intimate and sweet than his first novel did. Remember -- what's on top of your head does not say what's inside your head.