Boomsday (Paperback)

by Christopher Buckley (Author)
Key Phrases: mink ranchers, legal suicide, resource hogs, White House, Gideon Payne, Bucky Trumble (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Despite the technicality of her birth at the tail end of the baby boom in 1964, comedian and actress Janeane Garofalo embodies a unique combination of edge and sincerity perfect for Buckley's tale of Generation X activism. At 29, Washington PR chick Cassandra Devine launches a grassroots entitlement reform movement but quickly determines that only shock can break through people's fog of apathy, so she floats a plan for baby boomer suicide—dubbed voluntary transitioning—as a means to preserve Social Security for future generations. Garofalo effectively portrays Cassandra's angst amid the absurd scenario of her macabre treatise—inspired by Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal—entering the public policy mainstream. Garofalo also demonstrates tremendous vocal range with male characters, especially prolife leader Rev. Gideon Payne and Cassandra's love interest and ally Sen. Randolph K. Jefferson. Yet, like his protagonist, Buckley seems compelled to address the topic at hand only through the boldest possible strokes of the satirical brush. Garofalo certainly does the colorful characters justice, but listeners may ultimately feel weighed down by the tone and scope of the overall experience.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Reviewed by Judy Budnitz

Does government-sanctioned suicide offer the same potential for satire as, say, the consumption of children? Possibly. One need only look to Kurt Vonnegut's story "Welcome to the Monkey House," with its "Federal Ethical Suicide Parlors" staffed by Juno-esque hostesses in purple body stockings. Or the recent film "Children of Men," in which television commercials for a suicide drug mimic, to an unsettling degree, the sunsets-and-soothing-voices style of real pharmaceutical ads. Now, Christopher Buckley ventures into a not-too-distant future to engage the subject in his new novel, Boomsday.

Here's the set-up: One generation is pitted against another in the shadow of a Social Security crisis. Our protagonist, Cassandra Devine, is a 29-year-old public relations maven by day, angry blogger by night. Incensed by the financial burden soon to be placed on her age bracket by baby boomers approaching retirement, she proposes on her blog that boomers be encouraged to commit suicide. Cassandra insists that her proposal is not meant to be taken literally; it is merely a "meta-issue" intended to spark discussion and a search for real solutions. But the idea is taken up by an attention-seeking senator, Randy Jepperson, and the politi