The Supersized "Me": Books Set In The 1980's & 1990's
/100 Years In Books: The Decades Series
This period of history saw the fade of the hippie and the rise of the yuppie. Baby boomers with a college education, a well-paying job and expensive tastes. Although derided for being self-centered and materialistic, many were awash in anxiety and suffocated by self-doubt. And not to be overlooked is the impact of the technological revolution and the birth of the internet, which were life changing in unimaginable ways.
The publishing world saw an onslaught of white noise in the books released; unending opinions of every kind about everything and nothing in equal measure. We saw the rise of “significant” fiction. Books that regaled the reader with fancy language, lofty ideas and haughty superiority. Oddly balanced out by the birth of “chick-lit” as Bridget Jones Diary was released. So began a love affair with easy lighthearted escape from one’s reality.
While we may have suffered from some cultural bereavement with the endless boy bands and bad fashion that popped up like a nightmarish game of whack a mole, history was made both in the stories within the books written and by those that wrote them. The Colour Purple was groundbreaking in its frank portrayals and Alice Walker became the first black woman to win the Pulitzer. William Gibson predicted the “consensual hallucination” that we would all fall victim to. So…the aforementioned internet? By way of social media?
Tag along as we wander through reads set in these decades. Some will be emblematic of the times and others will play with our recollections and perceptions. All will offer up an experience that can only be found in the pages of well written books.
Books Set In The 1980’s…
My Best Friends Exorcism – Grady Hendrix
Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fifth grade, when they bonded over a shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. But when they arrive at high school, things change. Gretchen begins to act…different. And as the strange coincidences and bizarre behavior start to pile up, Abby realizes there’s only one possible explanation: Gretchen, her favorite person in the world, has a demon living inside her.
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
Under the influence of their charismatic classic’s professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last, inexorably, into evil. A brilliantly written book!
The Impossible Fortress – Jason Rekulak
The Impossible Fortress begins with a magazine…The year is 1987 and Playboy has just published scandalous photographs of Vanna White, from the popular TV game show Wheel of Fortune. For three teenage boys—Billy, Alf, and Clark, who are desperately uneducated in the ways of women, the magazine is somewhat of a Holy Grail: priceless beyond measure and impossible to attain. So, they hatch a plan to steal it. The heist proves rife with problems, but they refuse to be swayed from their purpose. Full of pop culture references and great characters!
Bonfire Of The Vanities – Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe's best-selling modern classic tells the story of Sherman McCoy, an elite Wall Street bond trader who has it all: wealth, power, prestige, a Park Avenue apartment, a beautiful wife, and an even more beautiful mistress, until one wrong turn sends Sherman spiraling downward into a humiliating fall from grace. A car accident in the Bronx involving Sherman, his girlfriend, and two young lower-class black men sets a match to the incendiary racial and social tensions of 1980s New York City.
The Last Book Party – Karen Dukess
In the summer of 1987, Eve Rosen is an aspiring writer languishing in a low-level assistant job, unable to shake the shadow of growing up with her brilliant brother. With her professional ambitions floundering, Eve jumps at the chance to attend an early summer gathering at the Cape Cod home of famed New Yorker writer Henry Grey and his poet wife, Tillie. Dazzled by the guests and her burgeoning crush on the hosts’ artistic son, Eve lands a new job as Henry’s research assistant and an invitation to the exclusive and famed "Book Party”. As the night of the party approaches it becomes clear that things are not as they seem.
Silver Sparrow – Tayari Jones
With the opening line of Silver Sparrow, "My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist," the author unveils a breathtaking story about a man's deception, a family's complicity, and two teenage girls caught in the middle. Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon's two families, the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed, and illusions shattered.
Eleanor & Park – Rainbow Rowell
Eleanor is the new girl in town, and with her chaotic family life, her mismatched clothes and unruly red hair, she couldn't stick out more if she tried. Park is the boy at the back of the bus. Black T-shirts, headphones, head in a book, he thinks he's made himself invisible. But not to Eleanor... never to Eleanor. Slowly, steadily, through late-night conversations and an ever-growing stack of mix tapes, Eleanor and Park fall for each other.
Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980's, this coolly mesmerizing novel is a raw, powerful portrait of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age. Their world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money, creating a place devoid of feeling or hope. Our characters trip home for the holidays turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation.
Tell The Wolves I’m Home – Carol Rifka Brunt
1987. There's only one person who has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June, and that's her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn's company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So, when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June's world is turned upside down. But Finn's death brings a surprise acquaintance into June's life, someone who will help her to heal, and to question what she thinks she knows about Finn, her family, and even her own heart.
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.
Bright Lights, Big City – Jay McInerney
The novel follows a young man, living in Manhattan as if he owned it, through nightclubs, fashion shows, editorial offices, and loft parties as he attempts to outstrip mortality and the recurring approach of dawn. With nothing but goodwill, controlled substances, and wit to sustain him in this anti-quest, he runs until he reaches his reckoning point, where he is forced to acknowledge loss and, possibly, to rediscover his better instincts.
Books Set In The 1990’s…
High Fidelity – Nick Hornby
Can you describe your most memorable break-ups? Rob can. He keeps a list, in fact. But Laura isn't on it, even though she's just become his latest ex. He's got his life back, you see. He can do just what he wants when he wants: like listen to whatever music he likes, look up the girls that are on his list, and generally behave as if Laura never mattered. But Rob finds he can't move on. He's stuck in a really deep groove and soon he's asking himself some big questions: about love, about life, and about why we choose to share ours with the people we do.
The Deep End Of The Ocean – Jacquelyn Mitchard
Both highly suspenseful and deeply moving, this novel imagines every mother's worst nightmare, the disappearance of a child, as it explores a family's struggle to endure even against extraordinary odds. Filled with compassion, humor, and brilliant observations about the texture of real life, here is a story of rare power, one that will touch readers' hearts and make them celebrate the emotions that make us all one. This novel was the first ever Oprah’s Book Club selection.
Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng
In a placid, progressive suburb, everything is planned, from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia, an enigmatic artist and single mother, who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl and rents a house from Elena. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four of Elena’s children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.
American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
Patrick Bateman is twenty-six and he works on Wall Street; he is handsome, sophisticated, charming and intelligent. He is also a psychopath. Taking us to a head-on collision with America's greatest dream, and its worst nightmare, American Psycho is bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognize but do not wish to confront.
White Oleander – Janet Fitch
Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes, each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned, becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.
Prozac Nation – Elizabeth Wortzel
A harrowing story of breakdowns, suicide attempts, drug therapy, and an eventual journey back to the land of the living, this poignant and often hilarious book gives voice to the high incidence of depression among America's youth. A collective cry for help from a generation who have come of age entrenched in the culture of divorce, economic instability, and AIDS, here is the intensely personal story of a young girl full of promise, whose mood swings have risen and fallen like the lines of a sad ballad.
Girl – Blake Nelson
Welcome to the world of Portland teenager Andrea, the bold, sexy, shy, often confused but always resilient heroine of Girl. Told in a voice that reads like the intimate diary of a young woman about to take life on full throttle, this wonderful novel chronicles Andrea's jittery journey from suburban mall to Portland's thriving underground rock scene, and back again. A Catcher in the Rye for the "Grunge" generation.
I Know This Much Is True – Wally Lamb
On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, a twin brother, Thomas, entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut, public library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable. . . One of the most acclaimed novels of our time, is a story of alienation and connection, devastation and renewal; at once joyous, heartbreaking, poignant, mystical, and profoundly human.
