Boomer1 by Daniel Torday

Published by St. Martin's Press on September 18, 2018

Boomer1 imagines a new way to divide Americans, young against old, as a social movement fueled by viral videos sparks resentment of Baby Boomers, prompting Boomers to direct their anger at Millennials. The risk of “us-against-them” movements, according to Boomer1, is that “at some point animosity based in the broad strokes of identity simply pervaded, its origin obscured, only the intangible residue of its conflict remaining.” True enough.

It’s also true (and a point Boomer1 makes effectively) that “generations” are just demographic groups, defined by arbitrary “born between” brackets, while members of a defined generation are individuals who may have little in common with each other. The two key characters in Boomer1 are Mark Brumfeld, who is living in his parents’ basement and raging at Boomers who refuse to retire (as if Boomer retirement would automatically qualify him for a high-end job), and his former girlfriend Cassie Black, who scores a high-end job using digital-world skills that come more naturally to Millennials than Boomers. In other words, Cassie’s new career undercuts the foundation of Mark’s outrage, although she’s reluctant to tell him about her good luck.

Before all of that happens, Cassie attends Wellesley and then returns to her roots as a bluegrass fiddler. She has a relationship with a woman and then with Mark, who plays in the same band, and then cheats on Mark with the woman. Relationships are not Cassie’s strength.

At some point after Cassie breaks up with Mark, she sees that he has changed his name to Isaac and is starring in viral YouTube videos that he calls Boomer Missives. A failure as an intellectual, as a journalist, as a doctoral candidate in search of a teaching gig, and as a boyfriend, Mark moved in with his parents before launching “the most infamous domestic revolutionary group in the country,” based on his perception that all Millennials are screwed because acquisitive Baby Boomers, who care only about themselves, have raped the planet’s resources and destroyed the global economy, leaving nothing for the Millennials. Mark’s videos advance a manifesto: “Resist much, obey little.” Boom boom.

Mark’s complaints that Boomers have not been good custodians of the environment are fair, although unfocused. More than half of all Boomers actually care about global warming and unequal wealth distribution and the other topics of Mark’s Boomer Missives. Many of Mark’s complaints are self-serving and ill-conceived — yes, his social security taxes help the elderly, not him, but the system was never designed to be a savings account, and the next generation will be paying taxes for Mark’s support — but any complainer can find an audience of self-identified victims living in their parents’ basements, so it is credible that Mark’s videos would go viral.

The novel alternates between the stories of Cassie and Mark, with occasional digressions to explore the life of Mark’s mother Julia and her love affair with “pure American” bluegrass music before she begins to cope with hearing loss. Toward the end of the novel, Julia emerges as an important character, a sympathetic representative of the Boomers who has done nothing to fuel the anger of the Millennials. [Disclosure: As a Boomer, I might be inclined to have greater sympathy for Boomers than Millennial readers of Boomer1.]

Leaderless social movements in the digital age (like Occupy) tend to gather steam quickly and to fade just as quickly. Boomer1 explores that dynamic in a story that seems plausible, even if not all of its events are convincing. (I mean, even viewing them as generational icons rather than musicians, how could anyone dislike Jerry Garcia or Neil Young?) Nor have I sensed a wave of hostility against Boomers that Millennials might ride upon, but as a Boomer, it is possible and perhaps likely that I am entirely oblivious to what Millennials are thinking.

In any event, I view the larger message of the story as more important than the details. The story asks whether the immediacy of video has supplanted the power of the written word. The advent of YouTube and social media and the dark web make it easy for people to spark something they don’t anticipate by venting anger that they haven’t carefully considered and don’t really understand. The fire they spark might be damaging, but should they be judged harshly for sparking it? It’s hard to think of Mark as a bad person, even if his actions set events in motion that eventually have a bad outcome, but media pundits would clearly blame him (pundits are in the business of blaming) despite his benign intent. On the other hand, perhaps anyone who uses video to fuel rage against an amorphous “other” deserves a bit of judgment (although there is a world of difference between deserving disapproval and deserving punishment).

In addition to asking meaningful questions about how social movements evolve in the Millennial age, Boomer1 works best for me as the story of youngish people trying to figure out who they are. Daniel Torday uses a wealth of detail to create Mark and Cassie as individuals rather than Millennial stereotypes. I also like the juxtaposition of things that change relatively quickly (technology, generations) with things that don’t (the Rocky Mountains, the struggle to make sense of life). In that sense, Boomer1 offers important insights into both the things that divide generations and the things that will always connect them.

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