To some members of the millennial generation, whose formative experiences have included the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the economic hangover from the Great Recession of 2008-09, the relative ease with which their baby boomer parents have moved through life might seem especially galling. Feeding that resentment is the fact that many of those same boomers refuse to step out of the working world into retirement. That's the fuel to which Daniel Torday (The Last Flight of Poxl West) applies his satiric match in Boomer1.
Two millennials, Mark Brumfeld and Cassie Black, are one-time lovers and fellow bluegrass band members in Brooklyn, N.Y. Mark is a former editor at a glossy magazine in midtown Manhattan, with a Ph.D. in English literature that has yet to land him an academic job, while Cassie works as a fact-checker for Us Weekly. After Cassie rejects his marriage proposal and with his economic prospects plummeting, Mark decides to move back to his family's home in suburban Baltimore, taking up residence in the basement.
Following an encounter on the basketball court with an entitled boomer, Mark takes on a new identity as "Boomer1." He soon begins to craft a series of "Boomer Missives" on YouTube, railing against the predecessor generation. Mark's videos spark a movement of "Boomer Boomers," who support their ROWRY ("retire or we'll retire you") demand with increasingly brazen electronic guerrilla warfare.
Torday has his finger on the pulse of American society in the 21st century, and he smartly suggests that when it comes to relationships between the generations, the patient may not be in the best of health. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer