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A Memoir of Premature Retirement
Simon and Schuster
April 2005
256 pages
ISBN: 0743242173
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
Everyone says they would like to retire early, but Rodney
Rothman actually did it -- forty years early. Burnt out, he
decides at the age of twenty-eight to get an early start on
his golden years. He travels to Boca Raton, Florida, where
he moves in with an elderly piano teacher at Century
Village, a retirement village that is home to thousands of
senior citizens. Early Bird is an irreverent,
hilarious, and ultimately warmhearted account of Rodney's
journey deep into the heart of retirement. Rodney struggles
for acceptance from the senior citizens he shares a swimming
pool with, and battles with cranky octogenarians who want
him off their turf. The day-to-day dealings begin to wear on
him. Before long he observes, "I don't think Tuesdays
with Morrie would have been quite so uplifting if that
guy had to spend more than one day a week with
Morrie." Rodney throws himself into the spirit of
retirement, fashioning a busy schedule of suntanning,
shuffleboard, and gambling cruises. As the months pass, his
neighbors seem to forget that he is fifty years younger than
they are. He finds himself the potential romantic interest
of an aging femme fatale. He joins a senior softball club
and is disturbed to learn that he is the worst player on the
team. For excitement he rides along with a volunteer police
officer on his patrols, hunting for crime. But even the
criminals in his community seem to have retired.
Early Bird is a funny, insightful, and moving
look at what happens to us when we retire, viewed from a
remarkably premature perspective. Any reader who plans on
becoming an old person will enjoy joining Rodney on his
strange journey, as he reconsiders his notions of romance,
family, friendship, and ultimately, whether he's ever going
back to work.
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