SOURCE: Review of Microserfs, in The Nation, Vol. 260, No. 25, June 26, 1995, p. 934.

In the following review of Microserfs, Perlstein critiques the value of Coupland's insights into contemporary culture.

The Microserfs of Douglas Coupland's latest novel [Microserfs] are the men and women in the gray flannel shirts, working through the weekend. Boys and girls, really: These twentynothing vassals of Bill Gates's software empire live mired in bogs of arrested Oedipal development, toiling away days and nights in desperate competition for even the malignant attentions of an imperious and absent Father. “This morning, just after 11:00,” the book begins, “Michael locked himself in his office and he won't come out. Bill (Bill!) sent Michael this totally wicked flame-mail from hell on the e-mail system—and he just wailed on a chunk of code Michael had written. … The episode was tinged with glamour and we were somewhat jealous.”

Michael—“Using the Bloom County-cartoons-taped-on-the-door...