Boomsday
by By Buckley, Christopher
Category: Fiction , Political

In Boomsday, Christopher Buckley envisions the nation's next great brouhaha - generational warfare between profligate Baby Boomers and younger Americans who don't want to be stuck paying the bill, and how this conflict provokes the most outlandish presidential campaign in American history.Cassandra Devine, an idealistic, straight-A student was like any other seventeen year-old Yale hopeful until she learned that her father spent her tuition money on a dotcom start-up, and she would be forced to join the army.Ten years later, Cassandra has become a frustrated Washington spin doctor and devoted nighttime blogger who rails against the excesses of the "Un-greatest" generation and their negligent handling of the mounting Social Security debt. After she learns that her father has remarried and bought his dim-witted son's way into Yale, she politely suggests on her personal blog that Baby Boomers be given government incentives to kill themselves by age seventy-five.This modest proposal catches fire with millions of outraged citizens and an ambitious senator seeking the youth vote for his presidential bid. With the help of Washington's greatest PR strategist, Cassandra and the politician try to ride the issue of euthanasia for Boomers (they call it "Transitioning") all the way to the White House. Their opposition includes the president of the United States, who's running for reelection; a pro-life preacher, who may have killed his own mother in a mysterious automobile accident; and, of course, multitudes of Baby Boomers, who are deeply offended by demonstrations on the golf courses of their retirement resorts.