Balsamic Dreams: A Short But Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation (Paperback)

~ Joe Queenan (Author) "Late in the summer of the year of our Lord 2000, I began to suffer from a nagging cough..." (more)
Key Phrases: greatest generation, society has ever, Baby Boomers, New York, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As witty as Michael Lewis, more sarcastic than Bobos in Paradise, bloodthirsty pop culture critic Joe Queenan talks trash about his generation and its "lifestyle über alles philosophy" in his career-capstone screed, Balsamic Dreams. And what distinguishes the baby boomers, in Queenan's acerbic opinion? "They don't ever actually want anything. They just want a huge number of choices.... They have to videotape everything. They have bottomless faith in self-help, though it's obviously not working.... They're stupefyingly self-centered, unbelievably rude, obnoxious beyond belief, and they're everywhere." Queenan bemoans "the frantic attempt by roly-poly middle-aged Republicans [also known as "the Man in the Gray Flannel Track Suit"] to evince an aura of coolness because they possess one (1) Smashing Pumpkins record and two (2) suede jackets with virtually imperceptible leopard spots." He demolishes Paul Allen's Experience Music Project with sentences like buzz bombs. James Ellroy says that Queenan is "half-Calvinist, half-nihilist," and this book proves it. Perhaps most important, Queenan reveals that "middle-aged men who wear baseball caps turned backwards do not look like Puff Daddy. They look like De Niro's doomed moron catcher in Bang the Drum Slowly." --Tim Appelo --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

What distinguishes the baby boomers? According to film and social critic Queenan (Red Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon) in this witty, sardonic and heartfelt paen to his fellow aging boomers, they weren't the first generation to sell out "but they were the first generation to sell out and then insist that they hadn't." Deftly distilling the impact of a wide range of events in popular culture, he cites April 21, 1971, as one of "ten days that rocked the world" for boomers, with the release of Carol King's album Tapestry. Meanwhile, recent films such as What Lies Beneath and The Haunting appeal to boomers, he observes, with the message, "Just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't get your life organized." And, he asks, won't someone "admit that La Vita e Bella is Holocaust-denying crap?" Queenan occasionally belabors his humorous conceits (e.g., he ranks baby boomers as the 267th best generation, "right behind the Carthaginians in 220 B.C."). Yet he can also cut to the quick: "We abandoned the poor, the downtrodden and the oppressed [for] postdoctoral work in American Studies.... We made millionaires out of nitwits like Deepak Chopra and Tom Clancy while geniuses starved." (June)Forecasts: Queenan's broad, well-defined audience will eat up this cultural criticism lite. With a 12-city author tour and national print ad campaign timed for Father's Day, this self-proclaimed sellout will sell big.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Picador (June 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031242082X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312420826
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #259,331 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fun-House Mirror of a Book, May 26, 2001

By	Jeffrey M. Richardson (Reno, Nv USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Balsamic Dreams: A Short But Self-important History of the Baby Boomer Generation (Hardcover)

What Queenan does is hold up a mirror so that we Boomers can see ourselves, and yes, what he shows us is ugly, but it's hilarious to see ourselves through his distorted lens. You will recognize yourself, your friends, and your relatives. And if you appreciate mean humor, you will have a big grin on your face most of the time you read this. This is a book you will want to share. I want all of my friends and fellow Boomers to read it, because it's such fun. I want my father to read it, so that he can see his offspring put into proper perspective. And I really hope that the individuals that Queenan uses to illustrate particularly vile aspects of our smug self-importance read the book and recognize themselves. But it's about all of us Boomers, and all of us will enjoy a good squirm when we read this. The man is funny. This book will bring you pleasure. If it doesn't, you are seriously humor-impaired, and should pass it along to a less handicapped friend, who will then owe you a big favor. Buy this book.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Short but Self-Important Book, January 7, 2003

By	Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Getting into the spirit of things, I am going to write the short but self important review to tell you about "Balsamic Dreams: A Short but Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation." Queenan is perhaps the most intellectual non-political humorist writing today. With "Basalmic Dreams" he turns his sharp wit against what he sees as the many "crimes" of his own generation. And what a ripe target for satire. Queenan is able to skewer Boomer pomposity and hypocrisy with the kind of detail that could only come from someone who has walked among them.

That said, the book starts slowly. Queenan's last book (the hilarious "Red Lobster, White Trash and the Blue Lagoon") saw him actually experiencing things. "Balsalmic Dreams," however, reads more like an essay, and it takes Quenan about half the book to really get warmed up. By the time he comes to the Chapter entitled "What a Fool Believes" and deservedly lambastes Tom Brokaw's silly notion of "The Greatest Generation," the book becomes laugh out loud funny. Queenan goes on to portray an alternative version of American History told as if Boomer values had been held by historical figures. Under this scenerio, Thomas Jefferson is impeached for having an affair with his "nanny" and Abraham Lincoln delivers a touchy-feely Gettysburg Address.

In the end, "Basalmic Dreams" is properly subtitled. It is indeed short at a mere 210 pages and it reeks of self-importance (in a self-effacing way). It is also quite funny, especially in the second half. Hopefully, its readership will also get its message and learn to "mellow out."

52 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars funny, but disappointing, May 13, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Balsamic Dreams: A Short But Self-important History of the Baby Boomer Generation (Hardcover)

Considering how minuscule were the circulations of both Spy and Movieline, the magazines for which he wrote, I would imagine that most folks were first exposed to Joe Queenan, as I was, on Imus in the Morning. He's absolutely hilarious there : his sarcastic style is ideally suited to the format and he's got Imus continually directing him to new topics at which to spew venom. But after reading several of his books--all of which I've liked, but not loved--I'm beginning to wonder if he doesn't need a better editor to bring some form to his very funny observations.

Queenan's latest book, Balsamic Dreams, is intended to be an indictment of the Baby Boomer Generation, of which he is an embarrassed member. He's operating in what Norman Schwarzkopf might call a target rich environment here, and almost inevitably much of what he has to say is very amusing, even laugh-out-loud funny in places. But somehow, it's not as good a book as it should be.

There are a couple of problems. For one thing, he's really written a series of interconnected essays rather than one sustained indictment. This makes for some rather distracting disorganization and some truly annoying repetition. Worse, he periodically himself gets distracted from the task at hand. I thoroughly enjoyed his attacks on the so-called Greatest Generation and on Gen-X, but in these sections of the book he's essentially defending the Boomers, rather than garroting them, which is what we'd prefer.

The other problem isn't so much structural, it's ideological. Queenan's thesis is that the Boomers started out well, but then sold out. He repeatedly gives them credit for "the Freedom Riders. Woodstock, Four Dead in Ohio, driving Nixon from office, Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy", but then says that after that they became selfish, self-absorbed, and obsessed with their material well being. Which is all well and good, except that : Midnight Cowboy sucked; as he himself says, the Boomers as they exist in our minds are the sons and daughters of the Post-WWII white middle class, and as such weren't a significant part of the Civil Rights movement; Woodstock was the epitome of the generation's irresponsible self-indulgence which was then conflated into some kind of meaningful statement of peace, love, and brotherhood; and both driving Nixon from office and getting gunned down at Kent State were fundamentally related to their desire to avoid service in Vietnam, which, though Queenan largely avoids the topic, is the primary crime they have to answer for. Basically, he's completely wrong about whether his generation was ever worthwhile, and this too seems a function of his natural inclination to defend his own : the Boomers didn't decline over time, they began badly.

Oddly enough, the best moments in the book come when Queenan is making serious points, rather than comic ones. At one point, when discussing the total farce that Boomers have turned funerals into, with songs, multiple insipid eulogies, and readings from inane fare like the Tibetan Book of the Dead, he says that :

Because we Baby Boomers believe in nothing, we end up acting like we believe in everything.

Elsewhere, while visiting a dying friend, Queenan is approached by a woman he doesn't know who clearly wants to hug him, but avoids her :

After an awkward silence, she spoke : 'It's a shame that men have so much trouble showing their emotions,' she whispered. It was classic Baby Boomer feminism. What she meant was : 'You probably have the same feelings that I do, but you can't possibly show them, because that would necessitate revealing your feminine side, which this hideously repressive society prohibits you from doing.' It was also classic Baby Boomer behavior in that it capitalized on an inappropriate, emotionally devastating moment to launch a skirmish in the ongoing gender wars.

'Actually, I have no trouble showing my emotions,' I told her. 'These are my emotions. I'm sad that my friend is dying, and that's why I look so sad. If my friend wasn't dying, I would probably be smiling and look a lot happier. I think a lot of men work this way.'

'Have a nice life,' she replied.

Ditto.

Even here though, when he's truly nailed what's most wrong with the Baby Boomers, he fails to develop these observations into a unified and coherent brief against them, because his objections seem to be mostly stylistic, rather than moral. He seems more concerned with how cheesy the funerals are and how silly the hugging is, than with the underlying causes of these behaviors. But the Baby Boomers aren't evil because they are gauche or tacky or melodramatic; they're evil because they don't believe in anything but themselves and as Queenan says when discussing Bill Clinton's capacity to show empathy without ever actually sharing a feeling, "...they don't actually care what other people do as long as they say the right things...."

There is an essential hollowness at the core of this generation. The fact that they have no beliefs, the way they display emotion without feeling it, the way they tried to turn simple draft avoidance into a great crusade, the way they have warped social standards to indulge their behaviors, ...all of these these things should be piled one on top of another by the prosecution as it makes its case that they are the most destructive generation in history. But Queenan, notorious for his scorched earth style and willingness to take no prisoners, backs off, and the book suffers because of it.

It's too bad, because there's much here that's funny and wickedly observant, and with a stronger editor to keep him on track, the book might have been great. As is, it's fun, but somewhat disappointing.

GRADE : B-