In a world where old age disappears, life comes with a different set of problems, including little green people, vicious government crackdowns and deranged quasi-cults. Author Drew Magary's latest work of speculative fiction, The Postmortal, imagines a world where a cure for aging is discovered by a geneticistand once a person takes "the cure," they never age another day. Unsurprisingly, "the cure" changes the world, creating a struggle for resources among an outrageously exploding world population, causing the widespread dissolution of marriages (who wants to be married forever?) and leading to worldwide government panic.
The life of the postmortals is told by John Farrell, who navigates his way from the early days of the illegal cures to the ultimate solution of postmortals decades later. Despite its grim topics, The Postmortal is filled with acerbic humor and irreverent satire and combines a thrilling plot with a witty take on a pre-apocalyptic world. This piece of speculative fiction creates a believable version of our world in which biological aging is no longer an issue and explores its aftereffects, including erratic pro-death movements and maniacal terrorist groups that pop up to deal with this radical change to human existence.
Magary is a blogger for Deadspin.com and the founder of the website Kissing Suzy Kolber. The Postmortal is his second novel. Magary will appear at Boswell Book Co. on Nov. 30 at 7 p.m.
