Lifers

Electric with compelling action and trenchant social commentary and perfect for fans of Nikki Erlick’s The Measure, this genre-straddling work of speculative fiction examines ageism from a new and challenging perspective.

In the year 2050, the man known as Zinn is on the run from the consequences of his greatest creation: an artificial genome that wildly increases the human lifespan. His ＂Methuselah gene＂ has gone viral, and he’s being hunted by Adele, a semi-retired CIA biowarfare specialist who hopes to find a way to reverse the genome’s effects before it’s too late.

As the longevity plague spreads, populations explode, economies are upended, and intergenerational resentments boil over. Adele searches for a cure while her former lover, Dan Altman, and his wife, Marion, wealthy political operatives both, become leaders of a movement of hundred-plus-year-old ＂lifers＂ and fight to create a sanctuary for the ultra-aged in the wilds of Colorado. Meanwhile, the Altmans’ son, Nolan, thinks he has the answer to the longevity crisis: a suicide pill that kills after one year, a death wish algorithm that will influence the super-aged to take it, and his beautiful daughter, Claire, who is a spokesperson for the growing anti-lifer backlash and the head of the federal government’s new Department for Longevity Management.

Combining a hugely topical premise with a vein of social-political satire, Lifers evokes a world where society’s ingrained ageism turns lethal and the fear of death is replaced by the challenge of living on . . . and on.

Keith G. McWalter’s first novel, When We Were All Still Alive, was published by SparkPress in 2021. His essays have appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He’s the author of two blogs, Mortal Coil and Spoiled Guest, which present his essays and travel pieces to a loyal online following. Keith is a graduate of Columbia Law School and earned a BA in English Literature from Denison University. He lives with his wife, Courtney, in Granville, Ohio, and Sanibel, Florida.