Boomsday- by Christopher Buckley

Any worthwhile satire is an attempt to point out the shortcomings of humanity through humour and wit, usually with a measure of exaggeration. The ultimate goal is to inspire change. I have always felt that writing a satire of American politics would be a very difficult undertaking, simply because the world of American politics, even without any literary embellishments, is an absurd one. Christopher Buckley’s latest novel, Boomsday, confirmed this for me.

The plot revolves around Cassandra Devine, (aka Cassie Cochrane), a public relations executive and inveterate blogger who, in her latter persona, tries to effect change by challenging her generation of thirty-somethings. Despite her establishment job, which essentially boils down to defending the indefensible through language and optics, she rebels against that establishment by urging her peers to rise up against the boomers who, as they retire, will bankrupt her generation through their social security provisions. Her frustration over the government’s failure to address the issue leads her to make a ‘modest proposal’, in the Jonathan Swift tradition, that Boomers be offered financial incentives in order to commit suicide by age 65, thereby sparing her generation the overwhelming costs of supporting them in their dotage. Euphemistically labeled ‘transitioning,’ this mass suicide would carry with it financial incentives to be enjoyed during the life of the suicide and his/her heirs.

Of course, this proposal is met with predictable outrage. That is, until Senator Randy Jepperson, ‘from the great state of Massachusetts,’ and a friend of Cassandra, decides to use it for his advantage, both raising his national profile in the process and giving the concept political legitimacy. His actions bring out some powerful enemies, including the foul-mouthed President Peacham, his amoral (is there any other kind?) political adviser Bucky Trimble, Cassie’s estranged father, Frank Cochrane, and a Jerry Falwell type of religious figure, Gideon Payne, who many believe killed his mother by driving her off of a cliff.

While the book is undeniably humorous in many ways, whether it is an effective satire is an altogether different consideration for the reason announced at the beginning of this review. We are perhaps too familiar with the self-serving nature of American politics, marked as it is by greed, lust for power, amorality and expediency to derive any real benefit from a book that seeks to satirize these things. In a world where a Karl Rove can retire, unscathed, from his position, where a Vice President can shoot a man in the face and then have that man apologize for the trouble he caused Mr. Cheney, and where a President refuses to extend healthcare for children while spending billions per annum on a futile war, is there really anything more that the world of satirical fiction can achieve?