February 26, 2007
Reviewed by
Jessica Cutler
It's the end of the world as we know it, especially if bloggers are setting the national agenda. In his latest novel, Buckley imagines a not-so-distant future when America teeters on the brink of economic disaster as the baby boomers start retiring. Buckley takes on such pressing (however boring) topics as Social Security reform and fiscal solvency, as does his protagonist. And get this: she's a blogger.
Buckley's heroine is "a morally superior twenty-nine-year-old PR chick" who blogs at night about the impending Boomsday budget crisis. Of course, "she was young, she was pretty, she was blonde, she had something to say." She has a large, doting audience that eagerly awaits her every blog entry. And her name? Cassandra. And the name of her blog? Also Cassandra. Of course, Buckley doesn't let his allusion get by us:
"She was a goddess of something," another character struggles to remember, which gives his heroine the opportunity to educate us about the significance of her namesake.
"Daughter of the king of Troy. She warned that the city would fall to the Greeks," she explains. "Cassandra is sort of a metaphor for catastrophe prediction. This is me. It's what I do."
So Cassandra, doing what she does, starts by calling for "an economic Bastille Day" and her minions take to destroying golf courses in protest. Cassandra grabs headlines and magazine covers, and the president starts wringing his hands over what she might blog about next. Her follow-up: a radical but tantalizingly expedient solution to that most vexing of issues, the Social Security problem—Cassandra proposes that senior citizens kill themselves in exchange for tax breaks.
Buckley, author of Thank You for Smoking
, shows great imagination as he fires his pistol at the feet of his straw women and men. In 300-plus pages, though, it would be nice if he had found a way to endear us to at least one of his characters. Yes, we know that Washington is "an asshole-rich environment," as one puts it, but some Tom Wolfe–style self-loathing might be good for characters who use the word touché.
Full disclosure: I'm a blogger of Cassandra's generation, and at times the totally over-the-top, relentlessly us-against-them scenario reminded me that I was reading a book written by someone not
of the blogging generation, someone who Cassandra would want put down. Oh, the irony in these generationalist feelings. Then again, maybe that's exactly Buckley's point.
Jessica Cutler is the author of The Washingtonienne.
June 25, 2007
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. Simultaneous release with the Twelve hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 26).
March 15, 2007
This latest satire from Buckley (Thank You for Not Smoking ) tackles the looming Social Security crisis, which will be triggered when all the baby boomers begin retiring, an occasion known as Boomsday. Cassandra Devine, a 29-year-old Washington PR flack, kicks off the novel's action by suggesting on her blog that members of her cohort, the "Whatever" generation, protest by taking action against gated communities, known harbors of soon-to-retire boomers. The under-thirties respondand howleading to the eventual introduction of a bill that gives tax benefits to baby boomers willing to "transition" (read: kill themselves) by age 65. Buckley brings a cast of intriguing characters to the table, including a Southern evangelist, Cassandra's estranged dot.com billionaire father, a wily President and his ruthless right-hand man, and the charismatic senator who cosponsors the bill. Though the plot loses steam toward the end, the premise is original, the dialog crackles, and Buckley doesn't disappoint in the humor department. Recommended.Amy Watts, Univ. of Georgia Lib., Athens
Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from March 1, 2007
With Boomsday looming as 77 million baby boomers get ready to retire and crash Social Security, Cassandra Devine, a sarcastic spin doctor by day and a ferocious blogger by night, calls for a revolution. Why should the under-35 crowd pay higher taxes to support the "Ungreatest Generation?" What have boomers done for anyone? Look at Cassandra's heinous father. He absconded with her Yale tuition and convinced her to enlist, leading to her encounter with a land mine while escorting Massachusetts senator Randolph Jepperson. After going to jail for instigating anti-oldster riots at golf courses, Cass takes a cue from Jonathan Swift and offers her own outrageous "modest proposal." With one eye on the White House and the other on tough and lovely Cass, blue-blood Jepperson decides to back her provocation. As Cass's mensch of a boss observes, "The line dividing reality from absurdity in this country has finally disappeared." With delectable, smart-talking characters and a devilishly clever story line, prizewinning humorist Buckley, author of the novel-turned-movie " Thank You for Smoking" (1994), has created a scrumptiously shrewd and hilarious political satire that takes bold measure of the newly widening generation gap and politics even worse than usual.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)