YOU DON’T LOVE ME YET | JONATHAN LETHEM (DOUBLEDAY)
YOU DON’T LOVE ME YET | Jonathan Lethem | The latest from Jonathan Lethem is a slight thing, less a novel than a playful workout for his ideas about the slippery nature of creativity, authorship, and ownership, which he most recently aired in his February Harper’s essay, “The Ecstasy of Influence.” There he made mincemeat of the notion of individual genius by stealing bits and pieces from other writers and stitching them together into a virtuoso patchwork of plagiarism. (Along similar lines he’s offering an option on the film rights to You Don’t Love Me Yet for free to a worthy petitioner–on condition that should a film be made all ancillary rights will revert to the public domain five years after its release.)
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In the new book, set in the sun-soaked boho enclaves of contemporary Los Angeles, it’s a rock band whose collective creative process is under examination–and as such, the story also functions as a fond satire of scenesters. Lethem’s protagonist, Lucinda, plays rudimentary bass in an unheralded, unnamed indie outfit and during the day answers calls on a “complaint line,” a bit of conceptual art cum public service dreamed up by a friend. Enthralled by one regular, who will confess his troubles only to her, she soon finds herself ferrying the language of his complaints to band practice, where they’re turned into lyrics that make her and her bandmates, for one shining moment, stars.
BOOMSDAY | Christopher Buckley | There’s a Swiftian “modest proposal” at the heart of Christopher Buckley’s breezy new novel, Boomsday: if aging baby boomers commit suicide en masse, the Social Security crisis would be solved. The immodest proposer is 29-year-old Cassandra Devine, who’s using her blog, Concerned Americans for Social Security Amendment Now, Debt Reduction and Accountability, to urge selfish boomers to off themselves to void the burden they’ve imposed on “Generation W” (as in whatever). Fueled by indignation and Red Bull, Cass calls for public demonstrations by youth, spurring ugly incidents at golf courses frequented by retirees.
