Gen X approaches its Golden Age — a book review!

John Hughes, that great director and screenwriter who put his indelible mark on Generation X popular culture once said of storytelling, “I happen to go for the simplest, most ordinary things. The extraordinary doesn’t interest me. I’m not interested in psychotics. I’m interested in the person you don’t expect to have a story. I like Everyman.”

The focus of many of Hughes’s films wasn’t a stunning battlefield, a sweeping historical epic, or drawn-out celebrity culture. It was the small battles a person encounters in daily life and grind and coming of age (at any age!) in America: family vacations, high school follies, or the scramble and chaos of the holidays. And the characters more often reflected the personalities we all knew, or even those we see in the mirror: “A brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.” We of a certain age and generation understand these archetypes as fellow travelers navigating a world we were expected to understand yet felt apart from. And that’s what held us together.

By all accounts, Hughes was the everyman that he wrote so well and depicted on screen, whether that was embodied in John Candy in Uncle Buck or Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, or Chevy Chase as Clark W. Griswold in the Vacation movies, or a myriad of high school characters in his many films depicting the social dynamics of high school life. Surely, his upbringing in the Midwest (he was born and raised in Lansing, Michigan, and then in Northbrook, Illinois) contributed to the fabric of his personality and filmmaker outlook.

So what now? John Hughes passed away over 16 years ago in 2009 at the age of 59. In the introduction to her new book, “The Gen X Handbook for Middle Age” (Post Hill Press, 160 pages), author Lisa De Pasquale writes,

In 2025, the first wave of Gen Xers turned sixty. Our band T-shirts are vintage or sold as reproductions at Walmart and Hot Topic. Our playground of old tires and hot metal are the basis of the multibillion-dollar CrossFit gym empire. Our toys are our highest value assets. Our movies are classics. Gen X—led by Elon Musk, Greg Gutfeld, Taylor Sheridan, and Joe Rogan—is at the top of media and pop culture. We are entering our Golden Age.

Hughes wasn’t a Gen Xer, but his storytelling was unmistakably Gen X. He died before he had a chance to follow us through as we come into this time of our lives, so are we on our own once and for all? Have all our after-school specials and latchkey kid Hot Pocket survival techniques run out of gas? Is it time to sell those old prom dresses and concert T-shirts? Not if De Pasquale has anything to say about it.

This is not a rule book or self-help book — that would be anathema to all things Gen X. Rather, this is a story about a generation still navigating a world that doesn’t seem to fit what we were expecting. De Pasquale (who also writes BRIGHT, a daily Substack newsletter covering culture, politics, and lifestyle, and has published several previous books) masterfully uses this as an opportunity to embrace what Gen Xers have always leaned on: intuition, action, and fearlessness. Take a cue from Tom Cruise’s character in Risky Business, Joel Goodson, who explains his mantra, “Sometimes you just gotta say, ‘What the fuck, make your move.’”

Throughout the book, De Pasquale echoes Goodson’s Risky take, starting with her life story and weaving it into the topics she covers: Health, Play, Style, Love and Family, and Work. All the topics draw insight from the fast-paced, ever-changing world where technology has an overbearing, overwrought role in our lives — much different from the analogue time of the typical Gen X childhood (think real lawn darts and tree forts, not cellphones and Fortnite) — and bring it back to basics. In the dawning age of MAHA, GLP-1 injections, and biorhythm trackers, De Pasquale relates her own health struggles and how she overcame a Molly Ringwald-esque awkwardness and self-consciousness. “My decision was easy: I wasn’t choosing another way to lose weight or save face after dying, I was choosing life.” She emphasizes being a “weight loss punk” and adding as many tools in your toolbox as you can. Remember, if that hottie in homeroom didn’t notice you, you tried something different! If it worked then, apply the same reasoning here. At the close of the chapter, De Pasquale writes, “Life is about choices — some easy and some hard. I chose life — the ‘easy’ choice.”

The chapters on Play and Style are supremely entertaining. They contain all those nagging little details you may have noticed creeping into your consciousness but are too busy (or reflexively deflect) to notice: The importance of keeping physical media, “Today’s [Parents Music Resource Center] are the woke minority pushing studios and streaming platforms to remove language and scenes from film and television classics they deem problematic.” Things you’re too old for: “Ask a friend to help you move; Have anything pierced other than your ears.” And holding to the “Two Retro Method of style”: “Gen Xers pride themselves on not looking like they raided Barry Manilow’s wardrobe. We want to wear the styles we like, regardless of trends. But we don’t want to look like a prepackaged Spirit Halloween 80s Party Girl or Punk Rock Music Guy costume.”

*Note: I’m glad to see my old Members Only jacket and neon make her cut!

For Love, De Pasquale remains the true optimist, giving us the same Sixteen Candles hope that any Farmer Ted or Samantha Baker among us can follow our hearts and find our soul mate at any age or stage of life, “The fantasy that every funny or chubby or quirky Gen Xer had — that the crush/best friend would one day feel the same way — happened to me. I fell in love with my best friend and he fell in love with me.” Who doesn’t like a happy ending??

In all, the Gen X Handbook is a walk down memory lane without being a nostalgia trap or a screed against all things modern. It contains serious reflections and personal insight into the topics that shape our lives today. Instead of being weighed down by strict rules or black-and-white philosophy, De Pasquale incorporates her trademark humor and pop culture references that keep this a fast and memorable read. There were plenty of times I came across a passage and found myself nodding along knowingly, side-eyeing a few of my Gen Z coworkers (see participation trophies, emojis, and overuse of slang in the workplace).

We once read Choose Your Own Adventure books and relied on our imaginations to get us through the past few decades of life; there’s no reason we can’t continue on that same path, even as society urges us into packaged roles and predetermined outcomes. We once rebelled against that mentality. As Ferris Bueller once said, “The question isn’t ‘what are we going to do,’ the question is ‘what aren’t we going to do?’” John Hughes’s personal legacy may have ended with his death, but the story continues. Make it your own. Lisa De Pasquale is here cheering you on, because “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”