The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way, and It Wasn?t My Fault, and I?ll Never Do It Again Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00I3JAVRM | Format: PDF
The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way, and It Wasn?t My Fault, and I?ll Never Do It Again Description
P.J. O?Rourke began writing funny things in 1960s underground newspapers, became editor-in-chief of National Lampoon, then spent 20 years reporting for Rolling Stone and The Atlantic Monthly as the world?s only trouble spot humorist, going to wars, riots, rebellions, and other "Holidays in Hell? in more than 40 countries.
Now O?Rourke, born at the peak of the Baby Boom, turns his keen eye on himself and his 75 million accomplices in making America what it is today. With laughter as an analytical tool, he uses his own very average, if sometimes uproarious experiences as a key to his exceptional age cohort. He writes about the way the post-war generation somehow came of age by never quite growing up and created a better society by turning society upside down.
The Baby Boom: How it Got That Way And It Wasn?t My Fault And I?ll Never Do It Again is at once a social history, a group memoir of collectively impaired memory, a hilarious attempt to understand his generation?s messy hilarity, and a celebration of the mess the Baby Boom has made.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 8 hours and 11 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Audible, Inc.
- Audible.com Release Date: February 11, 2014
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00I3JAVRM
In his preface and prologue to The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way P.J. O'Rourke warns his reader that his book is "a freehand sketch, not a faithful rendering" of those Americans born between 1946 and 1964, the generation "that made the biggest impression--on ourselves." And that is exactly what he delivers in its opening chapters: an off-key serenade to his generation, sung with his signature irreverent wit and scathing social commentary. Unfortunately, I found O'Rourke's signature style increasingly less effective as the book progresses, making The Baby Boom in my mind more messy rant than pointed satire.
Being a member of the Baby Boom generation, I laughed out loud and nodded in agreement with O'Rourke's observations concerning our generation's innocence self-absorption, our spoiled brat assumptions that "we are the world" and that we will never grow old. But we did grow older, the youngest Boomer is now 50, the oldest 68. O'Rourke even organizes us into classes: freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior, each with its own character, quirks, and famous members (for example, Stephen Colbert is a freshman, Hillary Clinton a senior). He also contrasts us with other generations, especially the Greatest Generation, our parents, who "didn't get divorced" or "hit us much", and who only wanted us to be good and to be happy. I also thoroughly enjoyed O'Rourke's examination of the early influences that define us--the neighborhoods, the games, the schools, the churches, and the sports that made us, to borrow a phrase from the author, the "buttheads" we are today. Throughout these chapters I found O'Rourke's commentary a terrific mix of bravado and bull.
However in subsequent chapters, that terrific mix proved more difficult to sustain.
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