X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking (Hardcover)

by Jeff Gordinier (Author) "It's 1984 and I'm spending the summer scooping ice cream for tourists in Laguna Beach, California..." (more)
Key Phrases: poetry bus, douglas coupland, waking life, Smells Like Teen Spirit, American Idol, Paris Hilton (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Nostalgia for the attitudes and culture of the early to mid-'90s looms large in Gordinier's entertaining book-length argument for the greatness of Generation X. Gordinier does not have warm sentiments toward the baby boomers or the current wanna-wanna generation of celebrity worshippers, preferring instead the self-effacing, conflictedly ambitious heroes of the '90s, like Kurt Cobain and Richard Linklater, who were not enthralled by the concept of changing the world. Gordinier has an easygoing style and a comprehensive knowledge of pop culture gleaned from a career writing for Entertainment Weekly and editing Details magazine, and this might be the reason the book sometimes feels like a collection of essays. Sequences on the rise of Nirvana and the burst of the dot-com bubble are ably narrated. And Gordinier does find a fresh perspective in discussions of recent phenomena such as YouTube and American Idol and their relationship to Generation X. (Mar. 31)
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Review
“I loved this book…it’s impassioned, very quick on its feet, dense with all the right allusions, funny, and in the end, actually very moving.”
—Nick Hornby, The Believer

"I think Jeff Gordinier might be the secret love child of Tom Wolfe and Douglas Coupland. This book is a fascinating, thought-provoking and funny look at America today. It's about more than Gen X, it's about everyone."
--A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically

"This is the passionate defense that our much-maligned generation deserves."
--Neal Pollack, author of Alternadad

"X Saves the World is a great read-fast, funny and incisive. It's a thrill watching Jeff Gordinier spin his extensive cultural Rolodex and if I weren't so ironic and detached myself, I'd suggest anointing him the new voice of our generation-in-exile."
--Jess Walter, author of The Zero

"When future archeologists recover the artifacts from our failed civilization, may they at least find some reference to the forgotten sliver of a generation chronicled here, who dared to consider - even just consider - whether doing something other than selling out was a viable option."
-- Douglas Rushkoff, author of Coercion

"As a boomer through and through, I was skeptical: a bunch of 35- to 45-year olds formally famous for their most excellent slacking could now save art, music, and activism from the corporate monoculture? But in this passionate, beautifully written ode to the generation that even stereotypes forgot, Jeff Gordinier has made me believe."
--Leslie Savan, author of Slam Dunks and No-Brainers

"As a Marine, I hate slackers. As an X-er, I hate manifestos. As an MBA, I hate jokes. This is a slacker manifesto filled with jokes. But it doesn't suck. In fact, it's pretty great."
--Nathaniel Fick, author of One Bullet Away

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (March 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670018589
• ISBN-13: 978-0670018581
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #157,431 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars X hits the spot, April 9, 2008

By	Jeremy (St. Joseph, MO USA) - See all my reviews

It's hard to be brief about reviewing the best recent book on Generation X. Gordinier's book is an update on the adult Xer and his forgotten place between the narcissistic Boomers and the clueless Generation Y--whom Karen McCullough labels as a group with a "much higher self-esteem than their abilities". Gordinier's book bluntly captures the essence of Generation X transitioning from its last coming-of-age moments in the 90s to its entrepreneurial spirit which brought influenced artistic alternative music and movies, the dot-com boom, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Napster, Youtube, and Google.

Gordinier's writing smacks of sarcasm and in-your-face rhetoric, which is both honest and entertaining. His vocabulary and pop allusions are for those of us who are part of his Xer world. If not, see you you later. Gordinier's writing is a brief dip into nostalgic "Cooler King Moments" such as the arrival of Nirvana. It also lambasts the Boomers at Woodstalk '94 with descriptive passages, and recently their immersion into recycled Beatles nostalgia in Las Vegas. Gordinier also clarifies what it means to recognize kitsch--borrowing on the Czech struggles for freedom in the late 80s.

The first half of the book calls to me, as if it were my finally-discovered anthem. It is an instant classic, starting with the author's 1984 job at Laguna Beach selling ice cream and testing the awareness of tourists with indie alternative music. Pure hilarity! There are other anecdotes and moments that also pique the reader's interests, such as the bookend to the Xer's youth: an escape symbolically depicted with a 1999 Volkswagen Cabrio commercial to the tune of "Pink Moon." Gordinier's scene of a simple South Park neighborhood in San Francisco at the height of the dot-com boom is eerie.

However, the second half of the book begins to lag as the author seems to search for answers to his book's thesis. He uses trite examples such as a poetry bus, subsistence gardening, and a self-conscious and frustrating view of the Bush years. His language loses its luster and instead becomes preachy. Gordinier still makes fine observations, but some of them are politcally motivated--such as alluding to Barack Obama as representing the Xer cause (and forgetting that Obama's poetic rhetoric has yet to produce any kind of ideas or practical solutions that appeal to Xers. There is nothing to suggest that he will relate to the self-sufficient spirit of the Xer). Gordinier does provide one more humourous scene in which alternative artist, Moby, encounters a futuristically fried Brittney Spears. It's worth the moment.

Overall: 5/5 stars for the first half and 3/5 stars for the second half. The books is still worthy of 4 1/2 stars for its refreshing observations, its defiant tone and wit, and its dip into nostalgia. And even if my views are not necessarily one with Gordinier's, I give him credit for attempting to provide solutions for the dismal aspects of our society. I'll take that anyday over a politician's poetic nonsense and rhetoric.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars X Rocks The World, April 2, 2008

By	Dervish 33 (Studio City, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This book is a breath of fresh syntax & cultural analytic.
Gordinier's ability to truly nail certain key moments in the zeitgeist
and make them sing again is wicked good;
whether the tune is happy sad (the moment Nirvana broke)
or just plain gutter tragic (baby hit me one more time).
Gordinier lifts the curtain on obvious truths
that are only obvious once he reveals them.
I love deceptively simple artistic revelations,
and X is chock full of them.
Highly recommended unless you're a millennial, of course,
but then again, you would be too busy taking self portraits for your myspace page to read this in the first place.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars X-cellent, March 30, 2008

By	RedAllowed - See all my reviews

Having read the brilliantly cranky Details magazine piece that inspired the book, I figured Gordinier's full-length screed would be smart, really funny and bursting with intentionally button-pushing opinion. And it is. What I didn't expect is an ending that knocked me backwards with its hopefulness, embodied, in Gordinier's weirdly synaptic thinking, by the image of James Brown's battered knees. It's an amazing and moving leap. Highly recommended.