It’s official! The Crone Club has been recognised as part of the Boomer Lit genre. 　We are really excited to belong to this new and rapidly growing genre. 　Indeed, one of our reviewers Lynn Schneider hailed the Crone Club as an exemplar of the genre: "This novel is a good reminder that it's never too late to become what we were meant to be. It's a good example of baby boomer literature; that just because we reach our later years doesn't mean we are done just yet. We have a lot of living to do, and this book allows us to remember that's possible."

          Boomer Lit is a new and growing genre. There is a social revolution on the horizon and the demographic involved is too big to for anyone to ignore. It involves a rapidly growing new group in our society, which is likely to throw out the rulebook and challenge al the old ideologies – we’ve done it before. And like before, our ideology is being supported by our very own books and films 　

          We are the ‘baby boomers.’ In other words we were born between (and including) 1946 and 1964 and we now make up about a 29% of the U.S. population and 15% of the UK population. A great many of us have now reached our sixties and are starting to redefine that period of life, which used to be termed ‘old age.’ Already there are signs of a radical challenge to society’s expectations of age-appropriate behaviour which echoes that of when we were in their teens.

          Consequently a whole new culture is starting to grow up around the ageing boomer population, emphasising the changing aspirations of a generation that is ageing, but not prepared to be counted as out of the game. This first began noticeable in the cinema. Years ago it would never have occurred to Hollywood to release films such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Hope Springs and Mama Mia, which have been produced for the ‘more mature’ audience and give employment to brilliant, but ageing actresses.

          It is particularly in this new genre of Boomer Lit where the values of my generation are being extolled and reinforced, however. Literature has always been central to our ideology. We were always readers and perhaps more than any other generation, we still are. While our formative years were influenced by such big events of the sixties as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the rise of the Beatles, the Vietnam War, the deaths of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, books such as Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Robert A. Heinlein’s Stanger in a Strange Land, Robert M. Prisig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance arguably made a bigger impact on our consciousness.  They inspired us to want to make more meaningful lives for ourselves than it appeared we were offered.  This thinking led us to revolt against the rigid, structures of society of the time and the differential attitudes of our militarised fathers.

But Boomer Lit is not about the past.  It is certainly not intended as a nostalgia trip into the wonders of our youth – dreams of yesterday.  Life is not going to stop for us at 60, anymore than it stopped in the 60s.  Our new boomer lit books such as The Crone Club, A Hook in the Sky by Claude Nougat or the Mutinous Baby Boomer and her Parable of the Tomato Plant by Marsha Roberts support that idea.

We were the generation that was going to change the world, but we got side tracked.  Life swallowed up our dreams, but now we’ve got the time to finish the job we started, the way has opened up for us once again and perhaps for the last time.  Possibilities beckon.  Many of us are just as minded to refuse to obey the ‘rules’ when it comes to facing encroaching retirement, marginalisation and old age as we were in our teen years.  We certainly intend to have a lot more fun before we leave the stage.  

      Just like before there is a need for literature to support our changing values and beliefs, to help us to search once again for ‘meaning’ and go forward into a positive ‘can do’  future.  No wonder there is a growing demand for Boomer Lit books like the Crone Club.