Boomsday
by Christopher Buckley
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Book Reviews of Boomsday
Book Review: Light, on-point political satire about a serious issue
Summary: 4 Stars
If you're reading this, you probably already have a glimmer of the plot of Chris Buckley's amusing political satire. The action is set in the political world of the not-so-distant future, many of its cultural trappings recognizable now. As the cost of Baby Boomer Social Security benefits threatens to break the backs and banks of younger workers, a young blogger named Cassandra Devine leads a generational rebellion. She proposes "voluntary transitioning" - that is, tax breaks for elderly Boomers who agree to commit suicide by a given age, thereby relieving rising Social Security costs. Even within this satirical context such a ghastly idea is too far out there to be treated earnestly, so she maintains that she is simply trying to provoke discussion. The concept, however, catches fire, and soon has a Senatorial sponsor and much media attention.
Much in Buckley's satire has the ring of hilarious truth, wittily retold: for example, the pompous trumpets and kettle drums that usher in each broadcast of Greet the Press. Similarly resonant to political junkies is the corrupting role of an elderly advocacy organization, here a Boomer offshoot acronymed "ABBA," but clearly recognizable as the AARP. By the time ABBA has its way with Devine's proposal, it's even more budget-busting than current law. The Boomers are to be showered with more drug benefits and tax breaks, while their "voluntary transition" would be at too advanced an age to save much money. It's a familiar scenario in Washington, where AARP is forever wading into the Medicare and Social Security debates out of ostensible professed concern for fiscal prudence, only to emerge each time with more expensive programs than before.
Similarly pitch-perfect is a conversation that Cass has with a Boomer friend about the Boomers' limitless capacity for navel-gazing. She sarcastically asks him where he was when JFK was shot, prompting yet another self-absorbed recitation of his and his schoolmates' stunned reaction to the event (which Cass, impatiently, cuts off.) The book has consistent fun with the irresistible target of Boomer narcissism. If truth be told, however, the problem with Boomers and Social Security isn't that they're more selfish than other generations, it's just that there are too many of them. Generations earlier than the Boomers took far more out of the program than they put in, even relative to the Boomers.
Other elements of the novel ring less true: The under-30s respond far too readily and unanimously to Cassandra's calls to action, when their real-life counterparts have been a diverse generation that doesn't assert themselves as a unified political force. Under-30s simply aren't manipulated en masse by the simplistic tactics of Cass and her allied Senator.
The novel, though fresh and hilarious in many places, doesn't lack for clichés. Pompous, blowhard, secretly-libidinous Southern Baptist pro-lifer? Check. Dirty-tricks-spinning President? Check. Unlikely romance between cultural opposites? Check. The material is fresher near the beginning of the novel, and drifts further into banality in the later pages.
The novel nevertheless provides interesting food for thought for those interested in Social Security policy. Tongue-in-cheek though Cassandra's proposal is, Buckley's novel understates, if anything, the difficulties that await younger generations. The tortured methodology of Social Security Trust Fund accounting makes it unlikely that the situation will be transparent enough for under-30s to effectively rebel against. In Buckley's novel, by contrast, resistance is spurred when the Senate votes to raise the payroll tax to fund Boomer retirements. In real life, the situation would be far less transparent, and more pernicious: the federal government wouldn't need to overtly raise the payroll tax, but starting in 2017, would have to find other additional revenues to pay off the massive debt claimed by the Social Security Trust Fund. As a result, young workers would likely see their income taxes raised to pay for the massive cost of boomer entitlements, without the government needing to be forthright as to why. Same economics as in Buckley's novel, but less transparency. Young workers may have little idea what is hitting them, and politicians are unlikely to own up.
Particularly daunting is the fact that the overall fiscal situation is worse than even Buckley's exaggerated novel indicates. Cass says in one passage that she's run the numbers, and if only 20% of Boomers "voluntarily transition," Social Security will be solvent. In reality, about 30% of future benefits are unfunded, meaning that not only would 30% of the Boomers need to decline benefits, but so too would every succeeding generation. Buckley's novel, amazingly enough, understates the problem.
Buckley's novel is light, funny, and shines a bright light on a serious issue. It's only a matter of time before the movie comes out. Because of its subject matter, it has the chance to be a more important political satire than its lightness would otherwise justify.
Book Review: Boom! Goes the Dynamite
Summary: 4 Stars
Amid the problems of the Iraq war, the collapsing housing market, global warming, oil dependency, terrorism, and immigration is another problem that America's been on course for since 1937 when FDR created the Social Security Administration as part of his Depression relief programs. Unfortunately, with the government's characteristic short-sightedness the Social Security program essentially operates as a pyramid scheme with the people at the bottom paying for the retirees at the top. That was all fine except for the Baby Boom generation born from 1946-1964.
The "Boomers" are not only one of the most populous generations in American history, but in their short-sightedness have run up huge national debts and failed to produce enough offspring to cover their Social Security payments. Hence, conventional wisdom dictates that one day the whole pyramid scheme will collapse on a date known as "Boomsday."
Fortunately for all of us, Christopher Buckley's novel is far more interesting than those dry facts I've just presented. The story revolves around Cassandra Devine, a regular Supergirl being young, blond, and vice-president of a public relations firm without using her body to get ahead. Her father squandered her college money to start up a software company in the '90s, so Cassandra entered the Army, where she met Congressman Randy Jepperson on a fact-finding tour in Bosnia. Jepperson commandeers Cass's vehicle, driving it into a minefield that blows off his leg while leaving her relatively unharmed. Fast forward about ten years to where Cass is leading a Blogger revolution to fix the Social Security program without burdening the younger generation with high taxes. Her solution is to encourage Boomers to kill themselves at age 70, sort of a voluntary "Logan's Run." She finds an unlikely ally in now-Senator Jepperson, who champions the "Transition" program to garner attention for himself and a presidential run. But the proposal brings Cass and Jepperson into conflict with a southern minister named Gideon Payne (who might have run his mother off a cliff), the president of the United States, and Cass's now-wealthy father. It all leads to the most bizarre presidential campaign in history.
The main problem with the book is that this campaign is covered in all of sixty pages. I think we all know that especially now days these campaigns seem interminable. So it feels like a lot of build-up only to get let down by a rushed ending.
However, Buckley's story is witty and provocative. It serves as the same kind of "meta-issue" as Cass's Transition program in that it gets the reader to consider yet another of the many, many problems facing Americans in the 21st Century. You might not agree with the facts and opinions presented--especially if you're a Boomer ready to retire--but it does get you thinking about not only the problem with Social Security, but the government in general.
To me it was kind of like Tom Wolfe Lite, with a quick pace and without the kind of minute details that make Wolfe's novels twice as long. The downside of that is the characters feel more shallow than Wolfe's. As well, "Boomsday" is a novel that clearly exists only in the immediate moment of its conception with its references to blogging, Google, iPods, and "Desperate Housewives" and lacks the kind of in-depth anatomy of society that makes "Bonfire of the Vanities" relevant twenty years later. Which is to say that in five years no one will care about "Boomsday" the novel. Boomsday the real thing on the other hand might be another story.
But then most of us don't buy new books because we want to read them five years later--that's what the "classics" are for. So why not give this witty, insightful book a try? Best of all, you can look smart at cocktail parties (or whatever social gathering) by being able to intelligently discuss this important issue.
That is all.
Book Review: A novel take on aging Baby Boomers
Summary: 3 Stars
Who, may I ask, is better equipped to be America's premier comic novelist than Christopher Buckley? I find that his fiction is the proper response to being raised by would-be WASP Irish Roman Catholics. Please note: I am not commenting on William and Pat Buckley's politics or hobbies. What I'm saying is that there is irony inherent in the conjunction of Hibernian dogma and Anglican style. In novels from FLORENCE OF ARABIA to THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, Buckley has demonstrated that the tensions in his upbringing and milieux were not wasted on him; he knows when a cigar is just a cigar, and when a good cigarette is a joke.
Thus, I eagerly looked forward to BOOMSDAY, Buckley's latest riposte to American politics and popular culture. I was even happier to see it released from Jonathan Karp's Twelve, an imprint of Hachette Book Group USA, whose mission is to release no more than one peach of a book in any given month and focus on bringing that fair fruit to readers.
Twelve's mission statement says, "We will publish meaningful stories, true and fictional. Stories told artfully by authors who have a unique perspective and compelling authority. The singular book. Books that explain our culture; that illuminate, inspire, provoke, and entertain." Does BOOMSDAY fulfill this? Let's see:
1. Meaningful stories: In a not-so-distant future America, Baby Boomer debt has threatened Social Security sufficiently that a blog-born movement advocating voluntary euthanasia at age 65 gains credence. Meaningful? Check.
2. Stories told artfully: Buckley has a winning way with a scene, whether it occurs in a Humvee or a bedroom. Check.
3. Authors who have a unique perspective and compelling authority: Buckley's perspective is both singularly authoritative and compellingly unique. Check.
4. The singular book: What, you thought someone else was writing about voluntary euthanasia schemes? Check.
5. Books that explain our culture: Since Buckley takes on blogs, Congress, the electoral process, the Vatican, Russian prostitutes, Yale's admissions policy and more, I'd say Check.
6. That illuminate, inspire, provoke, and entertain: Two checks. And two balances. Read on for an explanation.
In not-too-distant future America, good-ol'-boy President Riley Peacham is the lame duck candidate confronting blogger-with-a-mission Cassandra Devine, whose voice-of-doom web journal is the vehicle for her unique solution to the coming Social Security crisis. Her ethics-free boss, Terry Tucker (reminiscent in morals and alliteration of THANK YOU FOR SMOKING's Nick Naylor), and mannerism-heavy boyfriend, Senator Randolph Jepperson of Massachusetts, alternately lead her on and astray, tossing out bon mots like bon-bons along the way.
Buckley writes both smart and funny; he provokes and entertains. Does he also illuminate and inspire? In this book, I'm not as certain of that as I was with THANK YOU FOR SMOKING. Perhaps it's because I could not find a shred of sympathy for or empathize with any character in the book. Still, I have found it intriguing that few reviews mention the raw deal Cassandra gets when her father defaults on her first tuition payment to Yale and she enlists in the army. I did feel a little sympathy for her then.
There was lots of humor in the cast but little engagement. Also, the middle-aged Boomer characters are uniformly heinous (fallen evangelist Gideon Payne, Papal-election-conscious Monsignor Montrefelte and Cassandra's greedy father, Frank Cohane). But aside from Cassandra, who seems a bit shrill and earnest at times, there are no young characters. Maybe the author needs to go hang out at Old Blue for a while and tune in. Remember, that's not "turn on," Mr. Buckley.
--- Reviewed by Bethanne Kelly Patrick
Book Review: Great Topic for a Plot but I Don't Think Buckley Knew How to Finish it!
Summary: 3 Stars
The basic plot for Boomsday is a great idea and hats off to Christopher Buckley to be prepared to tackle this serious issue. One that's not just for America but any western country with a social security system and a declining birth rate. Currently in the news, we out here in Australia have the two opposing generation camps going at it as the old age pensioners complain they can't live on the, in their words only measly $280 a week government handout. Countering that argument are the younger generation (who won't even have a pension when they reach retirement age and are being forced to save part of their income in an untouchable until they get really old account known as Superannuation). The young generation point out that a lot of them don't even make $280 from paid employment and they will never be able to afford buy their own homes, whilst so the so called struggling retirees go home to their houses now worth at least three quarters of a million dollars that they paid less than a hundred grand for a few decades ago. So I eagerly looked forward to reading Boomsday just to see how Buckley's fictional generation representatives played this very relevant to today scenario out. I have to admit though, I was kind of disappointed.
Don't get wrong there are some great characters in here, none more so than Cassandra Devine a young girl whose dreams were cut short as her father gambled away her college fund on his dotcom business, so even though she got into Yale all she could hope for was that by serving in the military, they would pay her fees years down the track. Cassandra has an encounter with a dim witted politician in a minefield so is forced to take a spin doctor job in the real world. Obsessed with blogging she declares war on what she terms the "ungreatest generation" but who call themselves the babyboomers. She proposes a plan to give incentives for individuals from this generation to kill themselves and remove the burden that is them from society when they reach the age of seventy. What the story really missed though was some great eccentric old people like found in Dave Barry's Tricky Business. Most of the baby boomer characters such as the PR boss Terry and Senator Randolph Jepperson were on the youth viewpoint side. President Peacham although stupid didn't have any eccentric funny characteristics at all. The only babyboomer that did was TV priest Gideon Payne was too much of a loser for you to expect that side of the debate could win. The novel was lighter than other killing off old people novels such as P J Tracy's Live Bait. It did have a fair few funny moments in it but the main problem with Boomsday is that it doesn't have a satisfactory ending. The story is going along and then suddenly there's an epilogue. It's almost as if Buckley couldn't be bothered writing anymore or had no idea how his story was going to end. None of the important issues the book is about are resolved at all by the characters leaving the reader to wonder if the real world can do it all either.
If you like eccentric character fiction also check out authors Carl Hiaasen with his novels such as Stormy Weather. Bill Fitzhugh author of masterpieces such as Pest Control, author Christopher Moore, author of Lamb and other novels have all also mastered this genre.
Book Review: Poking fun at politicians? I'm all for it!
Summary: 4 Stars
Cass is a talented writer whose father invested her Yale tuition money in his dot.com business. As a result, she has to join the military if she hopes to have her college tuition paid. While stationed in Bosnia, she is tasked with escorting the VIP du jour, a beguiling Senator from Massachusetts. A not-so-accidental accident leaves him as an amputee and her with an involuntary separation from service and, yet again, no money for college. So she finds herself working with a public relations firm using her talents to spin the negative into the positive for her clients, but her passion is elsewhere.
Cass is a blogger, and her website is dedicated to reforming, or outright eliminating, the bane of her generation's existence, Social Security. She is frustrated with Congress's do-nothing approach to the dilemma, and is highly critical of their pass-the-buck tendencies, which could only lead to higher payroll taxes. The basis of her argument is that her generation shouldn't have to pay outrageously for the selfish self-fulfillment of the Baby Boomers, and her movement quickly gains momentum among those in Generation Y. This catches the eye of a certain Massachusetts Senator who sees potential in Cass's followers, and their voting power - along with the sympathy attached to his stump - could be enough to launch him into the White House.
But despite his best efforts, the issue of Social Security reform is once again swept to the back pages of the newspapers. So Cass convinces her newfound ally to propose a shocking solution on the Senate floor - mass Baby Boomer suicide in exchange for tax incentives. As the economy crumbles around the current President's re-election campaign, a pro-life leader offers his support to help defeat the challenger and his outrageous proposal, even as several Baby Boomer organizations sign-on for their share of the entitlements. And, as they say in politics, it's game on.
Very few books have ever made me laugh out loud. I've smiled or chuckled a few times, but this book actually made me break out in laughter. I just couldn't help it, and politicians are easy targets for humor. Buckley has the usual cast of characters for this perfect political satire. There's the ambitious, charming, womanizing Senator; the tightly-wound President, who gives the impression that he could snap at any moment; the self-righteous and very wealthy religious leader; the brown-nosing, deal-cutting Chief of Staff who, as is often the case, is the brains behind the Administration; and the powerful, conscienceless entrepreneur, whose money extends deep into the world of Washington politics. My favorite character was, by far, the President. And if you don't like profanity, then you should skip his dialogue.
And even though this book is highly entertaining, there is still an underlying message. Social Security is the gorilla in the room that Washington has done well at ignoring for many years, but it isn't going away. Buckley does a masterful job at pointing this out in the form of an outlandish political satire that will surely find itself among the best sellers.