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Boomer1

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

"Torday is a singular American writer with a big heart and a real love for the world. He has the rare gift for writing dynamic action scenes while being genuinely funny." —George Saunders, New York Times bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo

This program is read by Maggie Siff, acclaimed star of Mad Men, Billions, and Sons of Anarchy.
Bluegrass musician, former journalist and editor, and now PhD in English, Mark Brumfeld has arrived at his thirties with significant debt and no steady prospects. His girlfriend Cassie—a punk bassist in an all-female band, who fled her Midwestern childhood for a new identity—finds work at a "new media" company. When Cassie refuses his marriage proposal, Mark leaves New York and returns to the basement of his childhood home in the Baltimore suburbs.
Desperate and humiliated, Mark begins to post a series of online video monologues that critique Baby Boomers and their powerful hold on the job market. But as his videos go viral, and while Cassie starts to build her career, Mark loses control of what he began—with consequences that ensnare them in a matter of national security.
Told through the perspectives of Mark, Cassie, and Mark's mother, Julia, a child of the '60s whose life is more conventional than she ever imagined, Daniel Torday's Boomer1 is timely, suspenseful, and in every line alert to the siren song of endless opportunity that beckons and beguiles all of us.
More praise for Boomer1:
"Torday writes exquisitely about our hallucinatory simultaneous realities, where lives are conducted onscreen and offline, networked to millions of strangers and tremendously alone." — Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!
"Daniel Torday's Boomer1 is a wild, wickedly funny, and deeply empathetic look at modern American culture and politics. Sometimes he's writing cutting satire, sometimes he's writing Greek tragedy, and sometimes he's just writing passages of staggering beauty, but he's always a brilliantly compelling and necessary voice in these strange, troubling times." — Phil Klay, National Book Award winning author of Redeployment
This program features bonus music recorded by Dr. Dog and produced by Zach Miller.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 30, 2018
      Torday (The Last Flight of Poxl West) constructs a hilarious story about generational conflict brought to a boiling point. Mark Brumfeld—a former journalist, bluegrass guitarist, and current English literature PhD candidate—is frustrated with the slow economy and job market, which he blames the baby boomers for. To allay his frustrations, Mark creates a web video series to encourage baby boomers to vacate their jobs, and for millennials to be ready to take them—by force, if necessary. But what started as catharsis quickly morphs into a domestic terrorist organization aimed at pushing boomers out of the workforce. The story is told through the perspectives of Mark; his ex-girlfriend Cassie, a punk bassist who remakes herself in new media; and Mark’s mother, Julia, a former wild-child turned suburban wife. Following the overeducated and underemployed, Torday traces the progress of radical thought from its foothold in the passionate young minds during the 1960s to its eventual domestication and corporatization. As tensions rise, the people in Mark’s life find themselves facing difficult questions about the accessibility of success and what it means to prevail in a system where so few manage to do so. While the ending feels anticlimactic, Torday’s wry examination of those attempting to survive in postrecession America is particularly poignant.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Maggie Siff glows in her narration of this contemporary fiction. After Cassie refuses Mark's proposal, they still have to work together as bandmates. Then, Mark moves back in with his parents while Cassie begins a new career in online media. Mark struggles to find a job and eventually gets in a fight with a former teacher, which prompts him to begin an online revolution against the Baby Boomer generation. Meanwhile, his mother reminisces over her life as a struggling musician in the '60's and copes with having her son living at home again. Siff seamlessly portrays these three distinct personalities. She depicts the anger and drive of the Millennials and reflects sympathy and kindness for the Boomer parents. G.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

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  • English

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