Book: 2030 by Albert Brooks

The Real Story of What Happens to America

This is a funny provocative book. Funny because Albert Brooks is gifted at writing humor and provocative because 2030 is only 18 years from now. Technology has continued to define the lives of Americans, and as a result people are living much longer, are healthier, more energetic, more vital and are using too many resources...or so say a growing group of younger (20 to 40-year-olds) who fear nothing will be left for them. And, perhaps that is true. Groups like Youth for Equality begin protesting and acting against the "olds." A devastating earthquake pretty much levels Los Angeles, and the US is way too broke to fix LA. Ah....what to do about all this. The President turns to China and tries to borrow even more money but the Chinese say no. They, however, do offer something.

And then the President's mother (whom he never liked all that much) becomes one of the elderly who "live" several years in a coma. Facilities warehouse those kept alive on machines, but the rooms are tastefully decorated, the tubes and lines are mostly hidden, and the staff always tells visitors that the "patient" seemed to smile the other day.....anything to keep false hope alive in the families.

Random examples of Brooks' writing:

"Compassionate Care was a very successful business, housing thousands of older people who needed sophisticated machines to keep them in their comas. Hospitals certainly couldn't handle them, and nursing homes had no place for people living on machines only. "

"He believed that many of the pro-lifers never thought about life as an entire journey. Just get human beings here any way possible and the rest will be figured out. Who would do that? Who would figure it out?...The pro-life movement only cares about the human while it's still in the mother. As soon as it's born, the pro-choice people have to take care of it."

"A new infrastructure has been built up around the electric car. One of the things that really caught on was the modern-day drive-in, known as the Charge N' Eat. Gasoline could only be sold by the oil companies, but electricity could be sold by anyone, and it was...As their cars were charging, customers could order food and cute roller-skating girls delivered it...If people needed to get going in a hurry, they could charge their cars with the ultrafast electrical pumps, but that cost more, like premium gas. So most people opted for the cheap thirty-minute slow charge, and they had to have something to do while they waited. Why not munch burgers and fries?"

And on and on....

This is an entertaining, funny novel. I laughed a lot while also realizing Brooks is laying out issues our nation will surely face sooner than later.