While I appreciate that this novel is timely and relevant, it simply didn't resonate with me. I am in between the millennial and baby boomer generations, and I can see both sides of the issue. Boomers are working past the retirement age, hanging on to jobs the younger generations have been working toward.

The novel started out strong and I was intrigued, however by the half way point, I just didn't care too much. The writing throughout is sharp and witty, but I just couldn't rally any emotional energy for Mark and Cassie. The only character I enjoyed is Julia, whose sacrifices for her family (and some resentment because of them) felt more realistic than the rest of the story.

Because of my job I am always interested in reading about generations in the workplace. The premise of his book intrigued me, but I had trouble connecting with the characters. The story is interesting and having 3 different narrators keeps the story going well.

What the heck did I just read?

I think I know what Torday was going for with the generational and societal tensions, but it didn't quite come together. Though the catalyst for the Boom Boom movement is Mark/Isaac, the book alternates between Cassie's (his girlfriend), Mark's and his mother's perspectives. I couldn't quite follow Mark or his mother's journey. It was like reading from 30,000 ft rather than feeling sucked in.

It is possible that I'm in the wrong demographic for this book. I'm in Gen X. I don't have boomer angst or dread at aging further. I have secure employment. I'm not musically literate and don't carry a smart phone. Nor do I live in a city.

Musicians may get a lot more out of this book, since a number of the characters and many of the metaphors and descriptions, and cultural reference are aural and/or musical.

I'm between 3 and 3.5 stars.

A fascinating, timely, and thought-provoking meditation on the craziness of our internet-obsessed culture, the generational divide between Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials, and just how far our lives can drift from what we've planned, Daniel Torday's Boomer1 is both funny and eerily prescient.

Mark is a bluegrass musician, a journalist and editor, and a student completing his PhD in English. He hopes to find fame as an insightful political writer, although he wouldn't mind if his band hit it big either. When he meets Cassie, a fellow musician, who plays bass in an all-female post-punk band, he feels like he has met a kindred spirit, especially when he discovers Cassie knows how to play the fiddle as well. The two embark on a relationship, which brings both security, if not wild passion.

But as Cassie's media career starts to take off, Mark finds himself at a dead end, which doesn't help their struggling relationship much. After she rejects Mark's marriage proposal, he's left with no prospects, career- or otherwise. With no money and nowhere else to turn, Mark decides to live the Millennial stereotype—he moves home to Baltimore to live in his parents' basement.

As he starts figuring out his future, his anger grows, so he adopts a pseudonym and starts filming a series of online video rants against baby boomers. The so-called Boomer Missives tap into a vein in society, of people stuck in the same rut he is, feeling the same feelings, and wanting to find someone else to blame. But before he knows it, these videos become a rallying cry for those who feel downtrodden, put upon, and want their chance without having to wait to pay their dues. Suddenly, he goes from spokesperson to revolutionary—with potentially dangerous consequences.

Narrated alternatively by Mark, Cassie, and Mark's mother Julia, a child of the 1960s who thought her life would be much more rebellious than it turned out, Boomer1 delivers quite a punch. There are times when it almost doesn't seem like fiction, because you could totally see something like this happening in today's world.

This is a very well-written book, but I found the pacing really slow. Although I've seen other reviews say that things started to pick up, it didn't for me. I definitely enjoyed the story, but I just wanted things to move quicker, and I wanted to like the characters a bit more, but the book certainly gave me a lot to think about.

If you like a dose of reality mixed in with your fiction, Boomer1 may be just the ticket for you. It will definitely get you thinking!

NetGalley and St. Martin's Press provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

”I can't get no satisfaction, I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no”
-- (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, The Rolling Stones, Songwriters: Keith Richards / Mick Jagger


Boy meets girl. Boy lives with girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy proposes to girl. Girl walks away. Boy loses job. Boy moves home with parents. Boy becomes Boomer1 online. Boy rants online about baby boomers having “all the jobs.” Boy incites radical movement.

“They were baby boomers.
They had and they had and they had, as if that was the very condition of their own existence—having, owning, getting, living out Bellow’s I want, I want, I want—while he and his generation had not. They, too, wanted plenty, but they did not have.”

Cassie Black, née Claire Stankowitcz, began her first year at Wellesley under her new name, and she began to change, as well, as the year passed. A former violin student, she joined a punk band, and as the years passed, the band made plans to live in Brooklyn. Through playing gigs in one spot, they made connections to get gigs in another until one night they end up playing CBGB, a club in the East Village where bigger names had played. It is at this club that Cassie and Mark meet, and find they have a common love of bluegrass. At the time, Cassie was in a relationship with her bandmate Natalia, which quickly crumbles away.

And so boy meets girl. Boy lives with girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl is happy. Temporarily…

Mark Brumfeld has plans to meet up with Cassie one night when his band was playing at Pete’s Candy Store, playing mostly traditional bluegrass music, with a diamond burning a hole in his pocket, and dreams for their future.

When his plans turn to so much shite, and continue to roll downhill very quickly, he not only loses the girl, his journalistic career is caught up in the mudslide that his life has become and plops him down in the basement of his parents’ house. Home again, home again…

Since he can’t see the connections that led to any of this, and he’s understandably frustrated, angry, and so he begins an online rant which turns into a radical movement with an aim targeting the baby boomers, calling himself Boomer1.

His mother, Julia, a woman who was also a musician in her life before marriage and childbirth, living in the Haight in the days we all associate with the Haight, the era of the 60s, when rock ‘n roll took on another level beyond “The Twist.” She could never have imagined that her son would return home, but then what is a mother to do?

”What Julia did know was that this image of Bubbe Bertha ironing tinfoil return to her at the oddest times, unpredictable and unpredicated, strangely if only momentarily debilitating.”

Reading much of this felt as though I was trapped in a room with someone ranting at me about the baby boomer generation having “all the jobs.” There is a lot of “telling” that feels more like yelling, and not enough “showing,” which is why I’m not rating this one higher – not only because the telling was more like yelling, but because it felt as if it was almost all “telling,” I never felt anything for most of these characters. There are, occasionally, some lovely passages, reflecting on life, but they were too few and too far between for me.


Pub Date: 18 SEP 2018


Many thanks for the ARC provided by St. Martin’s Press.

Thank you for the early copy.

I picked this up because of the interesting name It was an well done novel. I recommend this for fans of adult fiction.

This is a very unusual novel, the theme is something that is picked out of issues today, but certainly one I was clueless about. That is the resentment towards the Boomer generation for its' accomplishments and the retention of jobs.

We visit the issue through the eyes of Mark Brumfield, who sees himself as a genius, as a great author, as someone who should have a university job; but his path is blocked by Boomers who refuse to go quietly into that great night of retirement.

Losing his girlfriend, despite much of the relationship being another of his fantasies, he retreats in anger into his parents' home and becomes involved in domestic terrorism aimed at the source of his own dissatisfaction, THE BOOMERS.

Wow, blaming all the problems of his life on the aging population is an incredible act of self-deception. But, clearly Mark leads a life of self-deception.

In the middle of the chaos he creates is his mother, Julia, a very sympathetic character. I found her totally relatable and very sympathetic. While I wanted to slap Mark, I wanted to buy Julia a cup of tea and tell her that we don't blame her for the actions of her son.

This is a book that certainly makes the reader think, especially if the reader herself is a Boomer and a member of a faculty of a large university. I suspect that lots of book groups will enjoy the book, the ensuing discussions and taking a good luck at both the culture on the campus and the discontent of well-educated college graduates who believe they are entitled to everything, including jobs they have neither worked towards not earned.

I do recommend this book as a basis for a lively session of understanding what happens to young people who are thwarted by real life.

REVIEW
Torday's newest book, Boomer1, is about the relationships that people have with one another across generations. It's the baby boomers vs. the millennials in this sharp-witted novel. Mark is a down-on-his-luck musician who returns home to live with his baby boomer mother Julia when he is in his 30s. His girlfriend has turned down his marriage proposal, and he is in significant debt. There's a theme that persists throughout about the role of digital media and how it plays in different generations. It's an interesting read, though the alternating viewpoints muddle the narrative at points.

PRAISE for TORDAY
"It's Mr. Torday's ability to shift gears between sweeping historical vistas and more intimate family dramas...that announces his emergence as a writer deserving of attention." —The New York Times

"The last sentence of Torday's novel is one of the great conclusions...Torday gives his dual protagonists the ending they deserve...a real one, equal parts inevitable and explosive." —Esquire

AUTHOR
Daniel Torday is a two-time National Jewish Book Award recipient and winner of the 2017 Sami Rohr Choice Award for The Last Flight of Poxl West. Torday's work has appeared in The New York Times, NPR, The Paris Review Daily, Esquire, and Tin House, and has been honored in both the Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays series. He is the Director of Creative Writing at Bryn Mawr College.

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

I love the plot concept—baby boomers refusing to retire, thus depriving the younger generation of jobs. I liked the varying points of view of the characters, though I feel like they kind of meandered. I think the plot got a little bogged down in the middle of the book, but all in all a well told story that could very well become truth.

I willl not be reviewing this book. I read the first few pages and decided not to go any further.I willl not be reviewing this book. I read the first few pages and decided not to go any further. (100 characters, I hope)

Full disclosure: I was born solidly in mid-Baby Boom. This book could be described as an anti-Boomer manifesto. That said, I can't express how much I loved reading it.

Yes, as some other Goodreads reviewers have pointed out, the three main characters are shallow. At times I wanted to slap each of them silly over the choices they made. But they are not portrayed in a shallow fashion. It is clear that each -- of whatever age, gender or sexual orientation -- is fairly confused at the various turns of life, and is trying to puzzle through it.

Mark, who later in the book calls himself Boomer1, frustrated me because his life to this point has been directed by a desire to please and impress. His mother Julia, in contrast, had pinballed through her life (much like girlfriend Cassie), caroming from one impulse to another before finally coming to rest, perhaps immobilized by disability.

Reading Boomer1 presented me with a delicious dilemma: Each sentence seemed so packed with wit and insight that I would slow down to savor the meaning -- until the propulsive plot would again kick in and I would speed up to discover "what happens next?" I still wonder, how did author Daniel Torday do that?

I'm mystified that none of the readers on this site so far have mentioned the sheer hilarity in Torday's story. If you plan to read the book, put on your satire glasses and you might get more out of it. Yet it's more than a beautifully-written satire. There is inter-generational insight and there are profound questions about society, leavened by subtle mockery.

I did take umbrage at one point, when Julia was depicted as largely computer-illiterate. Had to remind myself it wasn't an indictment of all boomers, and that I was personalizing.

I will be recommending this book far and wide. (Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this bo

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read with some interesting insights on pop culture and relationships. I've already recommended it to a few friends!

An intriguing tale about a man seeking justice that gets carried away and spins out of control. Mark is a well educated “barely millennial” who struggles to find a job because of baby boomers. Instead of retiring at age 65, the baby boomers continue to hold all of the positions he qualifies for, so he is left to remain a struggling journalist. Wanting to seek justice, Mark lashes out on social media, only to find that his rant has turned into a revolution. After a series of domestic terrorist attacks, Mark begins to feel regret for what he started. Told from the perspective of Mark, his mother Julia, and his ex girlfriend Cassie, this story takes you on a political journey of the power of social media.

I am not sure this is a book I would normally read, but because I was offered an ARC, I decided to give it a try. I appreciate the storyline the author develops and enjoyed watching it unfold through the lense of three people. It really got me thinking about how a small spark can light a fire- especially on the internet. Overall, i enjoyed this book and would recommend it to others.

A powerful new take on the generation gap and the surprising parallels between boomer, gen x, and millennial.. It’s about aging, and the passing of time… and how the more things change the more they stay the same. A great read.

I sit here with 7 actual pages of notes on this book. I guess I could write a book on this book. I didn't care for the characters although they were excellently portrayed. There were many times when I frankly did not understand where anyone was coming from. The story was much better during the parts that were current action. I had to force myself to read some of the long past stories and repetitive words. The ending was, to me, depressing.


Three stars because the basic idea of this book is super! The writing is good. The characters play out.


Many thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this thought-provoking story.

This book was very thought provoking for me as I am a “boomer”. I loved the story from all character perspectives. The age and generation battles are true to life. Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me an ecopy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me this ARC in exchange for my candid review.

Wow! Tough book to review.

I actually hated the book at first because it was an unadulterated attack on Baby Boomers and all that they have accomplished. And a call to arms for them to all retire, so that Millenials can take the good jobs.
At that point in the book---I wanted to rip through the pages and smack the sh%& out of the characters for being whiney babies and not understanding that nothing was handed to the Baby Boomers---we worked hard for it.

But then it started to point out some of the crazy social, technological, and societal things that the Millenials are doing. And so it became a reflection on the struggles from both generations. And the practical decisions that were made by some of the most idealistic and artistic members of each generation have and are making.

It pointed out the scope and the influence that instant information technology can have---both for good and for very bad. One line resonated with me...."Technology was addictive when it was working, but when technology wasn't working, it was more addictive than heroin."

So, it would be a great book for Baby Boomers, Gen Xers and Millenials all to read. It actually became very thought-provoking when the whole story unfolded.

I would give this book high marks. Read it--it will make you think about society's evolution.

'They were baby boomers. They had and they had and they had, as if that was the very condition of their own existance- having, owning, getting, living out Bellow’s I want, I want, I want- while he and his generation had not. They, too, wanted plenty, but they did not have.'

For Mark Brumfeld his talents as a Bluegrass musician, journalist, and now holding a PhD in English- life hasn’t taken him to the places his youthful dreams promised. Unlike the baby boomer generation (his parents included) with their endless possibilities and still feasting on the spoils of the war generation, all he has to show is mounting debt, and a broken heart after his girlfriend Cassie refuses his marriage proposal. Tail between his legs, he has to move back home and live in his parent’s basement. There is no postwar high for his generation, and he has a lot to say about it. If he wanted to buy a house, if he ever had a solid job, there isn’t a chance he could afford one. It’s those baby boomers hogging up all the jobs, out-staying their welcome here on planet earth, refusing to give up the reins of power. They are the reason the millennials can’t have anything! His Boomer Missives (videos online) have a following, and before he knows it he is a national threat.

Cassie is a Midwestern girl who wants nothing more than to change her entire being. A bassist in an all female punk band that she founded, it isn’t long before she is replaced by someone who has played with bigger names. Just like that, she’s out and heartbroken. It is by chance she and Mark keep running into each other, and he brings her back to the stage, what she loves doing. A year in, they are living together, making music, spending time in bed, nothing too serious but Mark is depressed. Nothing he wants is happening fast enough, everything is just wrong in the world. Old love returns in Cassie’s life, maybe Mark isn’t the one? His funk is a heavy weight but maybe he can turn things around, ambushing her with a wedding proposal that costs him far more than he could imagine, making it impossible for him to remain in his apartment. His future suddenly feels like a limp thing, he moves back with his parents, his career prospects dead yet Cassie’s is thriving, taking directions where the only way is up, and making a lot of money. If Mark is love-sick, Cassie’s memories of their time together are completely different. So why is it that when he takes part in ‘activities’ she is suddenly being interviewed by the FBI? Surely Cassie loved him at some point, but she wasn’t fully committed to him, wasn’t really that serious. She knew he was lonely, broken when he left, but he had his thing, his passion in his boomer missives. Just what has he done?

Mark’s mother never dreamed her adult son would be living at home again, and never in her wildest imaginings did she think he would be sharing his ‘revolutionary views’ with the world in her own home, marking her for the rest of her life! Certainly in the two weeks prior to clearing out her things to make room for him she wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect! Once the sort of woman who wanted to become nothing like her own parents (similar to Cassie in many ways), to escape the snares of motherhood, convention, she had her own bohemian existence, her musical talents, a ‘what if’ past to visit, at least in her memories.” …she was the emperor of her memory palace and not even her son or her husband was invited to join her.” A life she had to give up, decisions to make that led her here, living in a home with a son who has gotten himself in far more serious trouble than he ever intended.

Each character has spent time changing everything about themselves from their names to shaking off their upbringing. Mark’s mother Julia says as much in the telling of her past. Each wants reinvention at some point in time.

Characters are on the cusp of becoming, it is easy for some and impossible for others. Who doesn’t want the golden apple of success? Are the baby boomers really as bad as Mark believes, or have they too given up on their own dreams? What is more emasculating than failure, having to return home and feel like a ‘man child’, reverting? What about the baby boomers who are meant to be enjoying their golden years but are giving shelter to their full-grown children who can’t seem to catch a break? Or do they all just really need a good kick in the arse?

Cassie is an interesting character, confused about where she is going, who she loves, what she wants and for whatever reason opportunities seem to present themselves to her. Maybe it’s in her attitude, her desires. Mark is disgruntled from the start, maybe he is just in his own way, not to say he doesn’t have legitimate complaints, lord knows times are hard and it can feel like the luck of the draw is not in your favor. You can work hard, you can educate yourself to the point of your brain exploding but success isn’t guaranteed. But the frustration of youth is clearly genuine, and it’s understandable why the baby boomers and the millennials clash so much and sometimes seem to come from different planets. Truth is, they are trying as hard as they can but it is highly competitive, and jobs don’t fall out of the sky. Are there lazy millenials, of course, but there are just as many working their fingers to the bone just to stay afloat.

There is so much angst in his boomer missives, creations taking on a life of their own. An interesting story though I wasn’t really in love with the characters, I was still interested in where all of this was leading.

Publication Date: September 18, 2018

St. Martin’s Press

'

A humorous book about the baby boomers, videos and social media. It is extremely light hearted and a quick, fun read.

I enjoyed the premise of this book. Why are so many millennials moving home and not being able to find jobs? Why are these people so angry at baby boomers?

Told through the eyes of Mark,Cassie and Mark's mother we have voices of all generations.

One thing that bothered me was the huge words over and over again. Not necessary. I felt like a lot of this should have been edited better as Mark comes off as out of touch and entitled. Cassie is more go with the flow and Julia certainly doesn't want her adult son living down in her basement making videos that have her being followed by the Feds.

While I can understand the angst of not being able to find a job, what exactly did he expect to do with a liberal arts degree, if not teach. He says there are no jobs. While right here where I live they are begging for teachers.

Unfortunately not every book clicks with a reader and this one had so many 6 syllable words that it just felt off. They didn't mesh with the story well.

Give it a try. You may like it.

Negalley/St.Martin's Press September 18th