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Last night she emailed me that Boomer Lit will be the next
big trend
and that I wrote one of its first books years ago.
BOOMER LIT?
Those who were born with the bomb are now a huge chunk of the population with disposable income ...
and who still do that quaint thing called ... reading.
From ABOUT SCHMIDT to REDS (retired spies dealing badly with mortality and being shelved by life)
to SKYFALL (the weathered James Bond and the haunted M dealing with regrets and mortality) ...
Recent movies are directing their attention to those facing grim questions and seeking relief and entertainment.
Baby Boomer novels address “coming of old age” issues
just as Young Adult novels
are concerned with just coming of age.
The word “age,” or “aging,” used to scare marketers
intent on targeting the young,
but no more.
With a huge and growing market of some 70 million boomers — technically, all those born
between 1946 and 1964 —
As I've written above, Hollywood was the first to notice the change in its audience.
You can probably think of even more movies ... such as
HOPE SPRINGS or THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL.
BOOMER LIT is a moving feast that can accommodate all kinds of sub-genres,
from light comedy to tragedy, from romance to thrillers, and more.
Which brings us back to Sandra ...
She points to Samuel McCord, the eternal 50 year old,
dealing with increasing physical pains,
the loss of old friends, a broken marriage,
and the loss of his childhood faith in God ...
against a backdrop of supernatural horror and natural disaster:
To look at me you might
think me nothing more than a freshly-minted fifty year old man with a taste for
black Stetsons. You’d be wrong on two
counts. I was at least two hundred and
five years old. And I was a
monster. I caught myself listening for
the angry villagers with torches in their hands. This was certainly the night for it.
As if to deny the monster that I was, I closed my eyes and
tried to focus on the scents and sounds of the three gifts from my wife for
whom my club was named. I opened my eyes
and smiled sad. Her gifts still remained
though she had left me seven years ago.
Seven years. It
seemed a lifetime. An empty, lonely
lifetime.
The good thing about having lived the life I had was that
I'd had two hundred years to get used to things going badly. And they always did, humans being what they
were. Yet, I survived. The bitter voice of my loneliness asked me
why I bothered. I had no answers. Just questions. Questions in the dark. Story of my life.
When they came for me tonight, would I struggle? I made a face. I knew I would. Not just out of reflex. Too many innocents depended upon me being
there to stand between them and the hungry wolves.
And then, there was my hope and my need.
There is a need in Man, even such a man as me, to see
himself. Fortunately, not in mirrors,
for I am denied that. No, not in
mirrors, but in the words of others. A
bridge of words between the solitary confinement of one mind to another. It is the link to the common spirit within us
all.
I lost that link. I
lost Meilori. I lost my light. And I could no longer see my way clear. I walked by hope alone. Hope that one day around some dark corner, I
would find Meilori waiting for me, having forgiven me when I could no longer
forgive myself.
What do you think? Is BOOMER LIT the next trend?
"Coming of old age"...I like it!
ReplyDeleteWho knows, it could really take off :)
Well, if Boomer Lit includes stories about coming of age in the 1960s-- including snapshots of that era, then I sure hope it's the next big trend because that's what my next novel deals with! Hmmm...maybe Amazon will add Boomer Lit to their Genre lists!
ReplyDeleteI wrote Secondhand Shoes having the eighties in mind. Even though the MC is 18, a lot of 40 something yr olds have been reading it and love it. Even though its a coming of age and discovering your own power.
ReplyDeleteGood post as always, my friend. Gearing up to read your novel. Almost finished with Angels at Midnight.
Tweeted and shared.
Hugs and chocolate,
Shelly
If it means money, marketers will jump on the wagon. And, when the audience is so large, they'd be foolish not to.
ReplyDeleteI think it will be more difficult to write for the Boomer crowd, there's such a variety of interests: the RV'ers, the SnowBirds, the culture loving crowd, the old Rockers, the globe travelers, etc. Should make for interesting reading if your friend Sandra is correct. I have heard others say the same thing.
Loved that bit by Sam McCord.
Does that mean fifty is the new twenty?
ReplyDeleteI was pretty excited about this idea, thinking I could write something about the 60's and 70's ... and then I saw that it was about getting old. It's bad enough that I AM getting old -- why the heck would I want to write about it?
ReplyDelete"Coming of old age"... I love it too! And I hope Boomer lit is the next big thing - they are my target audience too. It does make sense, as you point out, they have money, time, and still read. Interesting post, as always.
ReplyDeleteMark:
ReplyDeleteI think it well may take off. Coming of Old Age is a fun phrase, isn't it?:-)
J.B.:
I hope Amazon does include it in their list of genre's. After all, Alfred, Lord Tennyson centuries ago wrote ULYSSES in that genre!
Shelly:
Thanks for sharing. Victor hopes you enjoy his adventures!
D.G.:
You're right: if there's money in it, business will jump on it -- although like you said, it is rather a vague genre. Samuel is my reflective hero, the lynch pin to my linked universe.
Alex:
Axtually, I think 50 is the new 30! :-)
Steven:
With age you lose of the moves as McCord knows, but he also knows what you learn in tactics and savvy more than makes up for it.
We will all get there, but it is how you journey that makes all the difference!
E.D.:
I've missed your comments. I'm so happy you enjoyed my post. Coming of Old Age is what we all will do eventually unless our journey runs shorter than we wish!!