Bug Jack Barron
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"The saddest day of your life isn't when you decide to sell out. The saddest day of your life is when you decide to sell out and nobody wants to buy." |
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Bug Jack Barron is a 1969 novel by Norman Spinrad--more famous for The Iron Dream--(previously serialized in New World under Michael Moorcock's editorship) centering around a cynical talk show host named Jack Barron, who uncovers a conspiracy surrounding an immortality treatment and the methods used to produce it.
Tropes used in Bug Jack Barron include:
- Aesoptinium: The treatment is produced by irradiating children to death. The one that we hear about specifically is African American.
- Bittersweet Ending
- Catch Phrase: "Bugged? Then Bug Jack Barron!"
- Driven to Suicide: Sara Westerfield (Jack's ex-wife whom he starts to reconcile with), when she finds out what the treatment entails.
- High Times Future: Jack's talk show is sponsored primarily by Acapulco Golds, "America's Premium Marijuana Cigarettes" (the book was written when cigarette ads were still legal on U.S. television). Tobacco is illegal.
- Hipgnosis: Designed the dust jacket for the original British hardback edition.
- Human Resources: See Aesoptinium entry.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: In case you haven't figured it out yet.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?