With Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, Elliott Smith and Jeff Buckley gone, that undersized, underwhelming demographic known as Generation X was already short on idols. And after the death this past Tuesday of Elizabeth Wurtzel, the “Prozac Nation” author and 1990s-angst poster child, our confused, self-contradictory cohort may have lost the most Gen X member of us all.

Ms. Wurtzel, who died of metastatic breast cancer at 52, was well cast to serve as a face for a generation that the news media perpetually cast as nihilistic and irony-suffused — latchkey kids whose prospects were dimmed by recession and an America in decline.

She certainly had the look: A cover-worthy grunge-pixie image consisting of bare-midriff tops, streaked hair, Goth black eyeliner and a perpetual rock star pout. Not for nothing was she called “the Courtney Love of letters.”

For proof, look no further than the original cover of her 1998 book, “Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women,” where she posed topless and smirking, proudly displaying a middle finger to the world.