Helpful Score: 1
An entertaining book. The characters are a group of aging hippies that have spent the years having never moved past the 60s. There are some colorful nuts and a few sad folks with regrets of how their lives were spent. There are some funny elements as a revolt is started almost by accident. The consequences play out on what would have been Jimi Hendrix's 80th birthday-and some of those consequences are very surprising in the end. The beginning and the end were better reading than some of the middle of the book, but overall entertaining. Some of the details of the world in 2022 were interesting and funny, too (gas is $14.00 a gallon and Daisy Barrymore (daughter of Drew) is governor of California).
The year is 2022. It is over 50 years since the summer of love. So what has happened to the flower children/hippies? A bunch of them are in an "old folks home" near San Francisco at the mercy of a cruel establishment - corrupt conservators, a sadistic administrator, a doctor compelled to keep them drugged up and compliant, and children who think it is better for mom or dad to be put away where they "can't hurt themselves". Then there is a revolt, and the former children of the '60s put all of their civil disobedience and anarchy skills to good use.
There are lots of laughs in this book, but I found it more poignant than funny. For instance: "Rocky thinks about how arrogant they were back then, she and Grace and the whole tribe, how they knew old people were wrong and what the kids were doing was right and that it would never end. Of course, here they are, fifty-five years down the road, doing the same damn thing, so on one level it had lasted, in a twisted way. The difference is the love children never expected to grow old. Rocky supposes no one expects to grow old, but the children of the '60s were worse than other generations. Old age came as such a shock. You'd think sooner or later someone would tell the young what to expect and the young would listen. But then what? The social contract would crash and burn if the young knew what was in store for them."
Yes, there are laughs. There is irony. But there are also many touching moments, too.
There are lots of laughs in this book, but I found it more poignant than funny. For instance: "Rocky thinks about how arrogant they were back then, she and Grace and the whole tribe, how they knew old people were wrong and what the kids were doing was right and that it would never end. Of course, here they are, fifty-five years down the road, doing the same damn thing, so on one level it had lasted, in a twisted way. The difference is the love children never expected to grow old. Rocky supposes no one expects to grow old, but the children of the '60s were worse than other generations. Old age came as such a shock. You'd think sooner or later someone would tell the young what to expect and the young would listen. But then what? The social contract would crash and burn if the young knew what was in store for them."
Yes, there are laughs. There is irony. But there are also many touching moments, too.
Guy Fontaine's time has passed. His wife is dead, and the small-town Oklahoma newspaper for which he covered sports has forced him into retirement. He sold his home and moved to northern California to live in his daughter's guest cottage. Then, in a heartbeat, Guy's life goes from boredom to nightmare. After he blacks out on the golf course and drives a golf cart down the San Bruno Freeway, the dream of independence through his golden years flies out the window. Guy finds himself an involuntary resident in assisted living at Mission Pescadero, which its administrator, Alexandra Truman, calls "the premier retirement community in Half Moon Bay." Only this is 2022, and old-timers at Mission Pescadero are nothing like the old-timers in south-central Oklahoma.
