Early Bird: A Memoir of Premature Retirement

(Paperback)

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Description

Everyone says they would like to retire early, but Rodney Rothman actually did itforty 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 community 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. 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.

In the spirit of retirement, Rodney fashions 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.

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.

Reviews

"A hilarious reminder that everybody was young once . . . everyone except Rodney." -- Jon Stewart
"A hilarious account of moving into a Florida retirement community at age twenty-eight. . . . Rodney Rothman's premise is so silly and fetching . . . sections had me hooting so hard that I thought the neighbors would be over to check on me." -- Karen Long, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
"[Rothman] has produced a warm, wry bit of reportage. . . . His descriptions of the loneliness, the cliquishness, the slow-motion desperation of the place ring true and bittersweet." -- Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times Book Review
"It's hilarious. It's one of the best books I've read. If you're looking for a book, get this one." -- Howard Stern
"Rothman's observations are insightful and clever -- a humorous, Generation X perspective on what baby boomers are about to discover." -- Rocky Mountain News
"This book, which has a pretty silly premise, quickly and thoroughly becomes something much more: it's actually emotionally involving, and even profound. It's very funny, because Rothman is always very funny, but it's also truly moving, and, at its core, unspeakably sad. That's not to say it isn't fun to read. It is. It is!" -- Dave Eggers
"Old-fashioned retirement at age twenty-eight Funny -- sure. But Rothman is also riveting, friendly, and the good kind of sad." -- Sarah Vowell, author of Assassination Vacation
"A hilarious memoir . . . David Sedaris fans, this one's for you." -- Daryl Chen, Glamour

Author Bio

Rodney Rothman is now living in Los Angeles. He is a former head writer for the Late Show with David Letterman, and was a writer and supervising producer for the television show Undeclared. His writing has appeared in the The New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the Best American Nonrequired Reading, The New Yorker, McSweeney's Quarterly, and Men's Journal.