In this The Daily Beast review, Elliot Ackerman examines Maxwell Neely-Cohen’s debut novel, Echo of the Boom, a dystopian coming-of-age story about privileged teenagers searching for meaning as they drift toward catastrophe.

Four Horsemen of a Modern Apocalypse

The novel follows Efram, Molly, Steven, and Chloe, four young characters shaped by wealth, instability, technology, and fear. Their stories unfold across Washington, D.C., and beyond as the narrative steadily counts down toward an unnamed end.

Youth, Technology, and Apathy

Ackerman highlights how digital culture drives the novel’s world. Online games, social manipulation, insomnia, and constant information become substitutes for direct experience, leaving the characters restless and emotionally detached.

A Search for Meaning

Each character is dissatisfied with the life available to them. Their attempts to find purpose through risk, control, rebellion, and belief gradually connect their stories and help bring about the disaster they fear.

A Dystopian Novel of Its Time

Ackerman describes Echo of the Boom as an ambitious, Pynchonesque novel that balances apocalyptic dread with sharp observations about adolescence in the early twenty-first century. Its central warning is that destruction may come not from fire alone, but from emptiness, speed, and indifference.

Read the Original Review

Read “In a New Novel, Apathetic Teenagers Usher in the Apocalypse” at The Daily Beast →