My Secret Life: Douglas Coupland, novelist and artist, 48

(Brian Howell)

My parents were ... pleasingly disengaged from interfering with my life.

The house I grew up in ... appears in my dreams far too frequently. Please stop.

When I was a child I wanted to be ... in the teachers' lounge smoking cigarettes and trash-talking the students.

You may not know it but I'm no good at ... planning my time. When I look at my daily schedule I feel like a trout flopping about on a dock, drowning in the air. Some people are ruthless with their schedules. Not me. I wing it.

At night I dream of ... everything. In full colour with sound and music and plot twists and narration.

What I see when I look in the mirror ... I finally see my mother and her side of the family. It took a receding hairline and a beard to make it happen, but now it's definitely there. I've always been envious of Prince William because he can look in the mirror and see his mother. It took me 47 years to get there, and it's a great comfort. It's why I keep my beard, even though it's borderline George V.

I drive ... a papaya-coloured 2006 Audi TT. It's like driving a Braun appliance. It makes people happy.

My house is ... very much lacking in walls. I have art stacked two-deep everywhere.

My favourite work of art ... Roy Lichtenstein's Whaam! from the Tate. It's death, technology and pop culture having a huge orgasm.

My favourite item of clothing ... No one's ever asked me this. It was a white Fred Perry polo I bought in a Munich department store in 1994. It had dark-blue and light-blue trim, and when I wore it I felt immortal – probably because I was 32 and that's the age when the human brain is making its final cortical hook-ups (which is why most of us feel 32-ish in our heads). It semi-disintegrated in the wash long ago, but I kept the remains in a Ziploc bag in my cupboard. I've no idea what I'll do with it, but I'm glad I kept it. I suppose that's what serial murderers say about the bones they keep buried in their backyard.

I wish I had never worn ... No! That's the wrong question. Instead ask me what I'm glad I wore, and the answer is that I'm glad I wore all the crazy skinny ties and trench coats and Bauhaus-y and Echo and the Bunnymen hairstyles I did. I was so beautiful when I was young. And I took so few photos because I felt so skinny and ugly. I wish I'd just taken a few more shots.

The book that changed me ... John Coplans' 1970 biography of Andy Warhol. It was the first hardcover I ever bought and cost $10 from the Coles book store in the Park Royal Mall, West Vancouver.

The last album I bought ... The soundtrack from Control, the movie about Ian Curtis of Joy Division.

My secret crush ... Heinz beans. Seriously. My dad used to hoard them in case of nuclear war so I dissed them for decades, and then last week I bought a can on impulse and they're actually kind of OK as emergency calories.

My greatest regret ... Accidentally revealing my greatest regret in public.

What's the point? Candles sold in book stores.

My life in six words ... I really never left Art School.

A life in brief

Douglas Coupland was born on a Canadian Armed Forces base in Germany in 1961, but grew up in West Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of 13 novels, including his 1991 debut, Generation X, which became an international bestseller – and the title, a part of our vernacular. He is also a screenwriter, visual artist and sculptor, and a designer of furniture and clothing. Coupland lives in Vancouver with his partner, David Weir, and his latest novel, Player One, is available now