Matt McAvoy Book Review

Very sharply scripted, biting satire, and more of the same from the sardonically witty Harlin, this time set against the increasingly fashionable backdrop of the battle of the generations: Millennials vs. GenX (or whatever monicker the superior former have deemed dominion to label the latter with).  It was by pure coincidence that I read this book, about a former creative, days from his 50^th birthday, just a few days before my own 50^th birthday, and I therefore felt I had more of a stake in its witty premise: the tried and trusted narrative of reaching a milestone where all of life’s glories are apparently in the rearview mirror.  But Harlin’s book isn’t bleak; far from it, it is full of cheer and optimism – and more than just a few laughs, as its unwitting protagonist finds himself in a televised gameshow without his knowledge, as sidekick to a regressive, misogynistic former bandmate, being judged simultaneously by an adoring public and a generation of wannabe oppressors, to whom boomers are an obstacle and disagreement is a hate crime.  This is fertile ground for fiction, though usually set in a dystopian near future, admittedly; in this book, the generational gap, wider than any before it, one might argue, is very much about the here and now.

But don’t let me give you the wrong idea; it is much more than the woeful picture I may be painting.  It is very funny at times, the humour sparkling and razor-sharp, the dialogue a repartee of quick wit and volleying comebacks – though perhaps too quick at times, for all characters, bright and dim, share the same quality in this respect.  Still, that is the nature of Harlin’s writing, and it is a treat.  The author is clearly someone with a lot to say, and you can almost feel the pages of this book expanded to stretching point as he crams it full of his observational and ribbing humour.  If there is a serious message to be taken from this offering, though, it is perhaps that age is just a number, and there is a whole life ahead still to be enjoyed – or perhaps that was just my own optimistic interpretation.

I like Harlin; his writing is a real laugh, and he doesn’t linger too much on anything serious; the fact is, the human nature apparent throughout this book, across the generations and society in general, provide enough of the wistfulness on their own, to stop this book being outright comedy.  It isn’t slapstick; it is clever and thoughtful, and you can imagine the author spending long minutes, perhaps even hours, tormented over the right word, from one sentence to the next.  For that level of quality, he really could be writing about anything, and the chances are it would hit the key notes.  Take a look – particularly if you are a young-at-heart, free-thinking GenX, or whatever the hell we are called.