BOOMSDAY'S heroine is Cassandra Devine, a charismatic 29-year-old blogger who incites massive political turmoil when, outraged over mounting Social Security debt, she politely suggests that Baby Boomers be given government incentives to kill themselves by age 75. Her modest proposal catches fire with millions of her outraged peers ("Generation Whatever") and an ambitious Senator seeking to gain the youth vote in his presidential campaign. With the help of Washington's greatest spin doctor, the blogger and the politician try to ride the issue of euthanasia for Boomers (they call it "Transitioning") all the way to the White House, over the forceful objections of the Religious Right and, of course, Baby Boomers, who are deeply offended by demonstrations on the golf courses of their retirement resorts.
Boomsday is a drop dead funny look at one rebellous blogger, Cassandra Devine, and our current dysfunctional Social Security system. Cassandra's solution is simple: Give Baby Boomers government incentives to kill themselves by age seventy-five. Why should that upset anyone? If her father had not blown her Yale tuition on a dot.com start-up, she would've never wound up having sex in a minefield with a U.S. Congressman to begin with. Okay, so she has some anger issues...
This book reminds me of Evelyn Waugh's irreverent book The Loved One, also (recommend). Buckley is hilarious!
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DC Harvard Alums Book Club had a mixed reaction to BOOMSDAY. As satire on Washington, many felt that the book hit the mark, while others thought that the jokes got a little old and the story line started to drag. This is not to discount Buckley's ability to paint vivid character portraits that have become such a large part of his style. But as a send up of Washington, some members felt that Jeffrey Frank's THE COLUMNIST provides an even sharper wit and insight into the ways and means of Washington DC. One member suggested that the book was more a "treatment" for Hollywood consideration, than a true novel. Chapters are very short. The story line hops around and when the story advances it does so with a cinematic quality (which is great for movies, but not what novels are suppose to be about). Buckley is an excellent provocateur. While the club discussed his novel for about 30 minutes. The discussion really heated up over the next hour when we discussed end of life issues, social security reform and how club members are dealing/dealt with aged parents. It was a lively discussion, one that Cassandra, Gideon and all the other characters of BOOMSDAY would have enjoyed.
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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.
