Wise beyond their years

ReGeneration: Telling Stories from our 20s

Edited by Jennifer Karlin and…

ReGeneration: Telling Stories from our 20s

Edited by Jennifer Karlin and Amelia Borofsky

Tarcher / Putnam

Released Jan. 6

“ReGeneration” is a hopeful book that attempts to articulate in earnest the plight of a generation. It weaves together the thoughts and feelings of more than 40 contributors, all twentysomethings struggling to negotiate their way into adulthood and secure their place in the world.

The essays are collected under the common themes of “navigating,” “working,” “relating” and “dreaming.” Together, the fusion of distinctive new voices comes to represent a collective outcry. These peers aim to be understood by the world, but first they must turn inward to understand themselves.

The book is narcissistic; it is obsessed with its own creation. Indeed, its creation is a part of the story it tells. “ReGeneration” begins with a narrative, which illustrates the impetus launching its conception. Editors Jennifer Karlin and Amelia Borofsky attempt to justify the need for such a collection. They endeavor to communicate what moved them to begin this project, and what they see now when they look at the finished product – as they send their fledgling out on its own.

Part of their strategy for this is to spatter e-mail correspondence throughout the introduction, and throughout the entire book. The e-mails embody the transient nature of twentysomethings and the thoughts contained in the e-mails speak to each section of the book.

“ReGeneration” ends with a detailed timeline of its development, from zygote to graduation. For Karlin and Borofsky, the coming together of these writers, poets and artists is as important a story as any contained in the book.

The first section of the book is called “navigating.” In its introduction we learn that “three-fourths of all twentysomethings moved within the last five years.” Statistics such as this are sprinkled through the book, reminding the skeptics of the overwhelming prevalence of the phenomena depicted on these pages.

The experiences of “navigating,” like every section, reveal quite a variety. The essays tackle everyday occurrences as well as more extraordinary ones. There are photographs and poems and stories – all joined in their search for place, for home. What the conclusion seems to be is that “home is not a place so much as a continuous discovery whether we are stable or moving; home is a verb.”

The following two sections deal with “working” and “relating” respectively, both often difficult endeavors for people just entering into the proverbial real world. In “working,” the opening e-mail reads: “Life and work have such a weird relationship to each other. You want to do something you love, but it’s hard to find something you are going to love every day Mon-Fri from 9-5. I don’t know if it’s possible.” It is precisely this longing, the need to hold onto some ideals, no matter how seemingly unattainable they are – it is this longing that unites those writers who attack “working” and “relating.”

“I slide into the shower, search for a suitable temperature, and begin my daily watery meditation.” And so we begin the final section, “dreaming.” The essays and poems and photographs comprising this section are not just about dreams but about memories. They are about the invisible fabric of our minds that mold us. They are insightful glances to the beautiful, the atrocious. And perhaps it is this mix of hope and sorrow that most clearly divulges what it is to be a twentysomething, to have come of age at the turn of the millennium, to be struggling still to reconcile the two.