The Postmortal

This is the first thing I've read by Drew Magary, who has a big online profile, is into sports wrting and a lot of stuff it seems. It is a good read, -provocative speculative fiction. The story takes place in the future and is about the 'cure' for aging. The lead character John writes diary style, and copies articles from the cyber world including random cure related news from around the world. The book is like a found journal, and documents John's thoughts and feelings as he ages in time but not body. This style works well; Magary is able to tell us a story of a certain era in a new way, -a kind of twitter/facebook/tumblr journalism. A lot of issues come up such as what happens when humans have just had enough and are tired of living, even though they may be healthy. John becomes an 'end specialist' which is a job where he goes to meet people who want to end their life. He interviews them for the official records, and his co-worker gives them a fatal injection. Magary's ideas are novel and creative, and the vocabulary is easy, so that it would be a good book for high school students studying dystopias, and for fun. There is a sex scene that is a little disturbing; John is bored one night so he calls a hooker. When she finds out what his job is, she decides she wants to have him sex her while he injects her with the lethal dose, so she goes and comes at the same time. The disturbing part is that it is a very convincing bit of writing. The part I didn't like is that the cure was accidently found when a Portland doctor was working on altering the gene that gave people red hair.