Kids in America: A Gen X Reckoning

Editor Prato (Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege) mixes memoir and cultural criticism in this clever look at the “generation who was mesmerized by the gloss of MTV for the first time.” Gen Xers were the first to make less money than their parents and “the last generation to live without fear of being gunned down in school,” Prato writes. In “Magnum Force,” she details the stranglehold Magnum, P.I. had on the culture and her family; “A Letter to Frederic Lyman and the Plethora of Other Private School Teachers Who Sexually Abused Their Students” powerfully addresses a man who committed sexual assaults across numerous schools in the 1970s and ’80s; and the title essay sees her candidly write that, at youth summer camp, “we wore replicas of sacred regalia for Halloween,” noting, “there was meaning behind what we did: the belief that we had a right to plunder the land and culture and customs of those who came before us.” Prato offers shrewd analyses, but there are some big disparities between essays, with those on pop culture seeming trite in the face of the larger social ills discussed elsewhere. Still, it’s a mostly rewarding look at what shaped Prato’s life and generation. (June)