REVIEW: American Boomer by Steven Fisher

Reviewed by Anthony J. Mohr

American Boomer—the Journey of a Mid-Century Boy Who Didn’t Die Before He Got Old (Austin Macauley Publishers, September 15, 2023) tells the life story—at least so far—of Steven Fisher, a California baby boomer who did what most white middle class baby boomer boys in that state did: groove to 60s music, hang out in the Bay Area, trek through Europe, sleep with girls, smoke pot, get busted (a sympathetic Berkeley judge gave him probation), and despite the draft, avoid Vietnam. The opening is wobbly, but keep reading. His work gets stronger as it moves along.

Like so many, the author dreamed of joining a band and producing radio shows. Unfortunately, those options lay beyond his reach. So he did the next best thing: work in a San Francisco record store, then as a radio deejay.

American Boomer hits its stride fourteen chapters in with an engaging portrait of Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue, “a carnival… in constant motion” where you had to watch your step lest you land in the ubiquitous dog poop. His writing conveys an excellent sense of place. There’s the “free spirited hippie woman” in “flowing white dresses and a makeshift floral crown.” He approached her, once, and “asked how she was doing. She looked at me with her soup bowl eyes and burst out laughing. That was it.”

The Europe chapter follows, mostly summary until late in the trip, when Fisher arrives in Greece and treats us to lovely little scenes with the locals and a well-crafted narrative about his tryst with Muna, a lady from Germany. This author knows how to write about romance.

Next, Steve Fisher turns to radio, his best chapter. The prose sings, because radio and music are the author’s true loves. These are the pages that show us who Steve Fisher is, a man full of enthusiasm and sympathetic instincts. He becomes the all-night jock on San Francisco’s K-101. We’re right there with him through the wee hours, listening to the crank calls, the fan calls, the threatening calls. Finally, a teenager sobs into the phone, “I’m gonna  kill myself. I just wanted to call and say goodbye.” It’s the most gripping scene in the book. You’re right next to the troubled girl and the author, who displays himself as an empathetic, resourceful human being.

In June 1980, he decamped for Los Angeles, a town he sums up in this trenchant passage:

“Since the beginning of the twentieth century, largely because of the film industry, attractive people have poured into Los Angeles on the presumption that they would become movie stars…The problem was that attractive people from every town in America had the same idea… Although some saw their dreams come true, most did not, and many ended up staying in LA and working in other professions. Then they had children with other attractive people and so on. This is one reason why LA has an abundance of attractive people to this day.”

Apparently the author was among the attractive, because to hear him say it, he had his way with women whenever and wherever they appeared. But hey; these were the years before AIDS, when safe sex meant not having sex while speeding on freeways.

Stud though he may have been, Fisher’s hopes for a life in music sputtered. By the late 1980s, he had no career. He lived in a rundown guest house in a neighborhood full of gunfire and police helicopters. He was entering middle age: “The times were changing and the coming generation was gaining on me.” He candidly describes the dark days, single and surviving by summarizing depositions. The work must have been tedious and boring—slogging through indenture agreements, chiropractors, soft tissue injuries. What a humbling come-down for a boomer who planned to compose top-40 songs.

That’s when he turned to writing.

After a flood of rejections, a New York publisher accepted a humorous book about cats, and while it didn’t race up the best seller lists, it rescued Fisher’s ego. To see it on bookshelves at Barnes & Noble was bracing.

Steve Fisher is a reliable narrator, full of honesty. I wasn’t expecting much from the chapter about his wife Judy, but despite being somewhat overwritten, the contents come from the heart, as so much of this memoir does. He sprinkles American Boomer with flashes of lyricism, enough to prove his worth as a writer, and his epilogue presents a charming summing up. You will like this author.

Still, two criticisms linger. First a dying man named Ray shows up in the penultimate chapter. Unless I missed it, there’s no earlier mention of him. Obviously Ray was someone the author cared about deeply, but bringing him on stage just ahead of the epilogue breaks the rhythm of the book. Second, a number of typos and grammar nits made me shake my head. Mr. Fisher’s publisher didn’t do him any favors.

Fisher mentions in passing that a memoir he wrote about life as an all-night disc jockey went nowhere. Given the heft and beauty of his chapter about K-101, that’s surprising. Now with two books under his belt, he ought to dust off his work and try again. My guess is this time, he’ll find a home.