The Daily Beast discusses how Generation X writers (in this case, Bret Easton Ellis and Jennifer Egan) seem depressed as they enter, or in the midst of, middle age:

Imperial Bedrooms is not great, but in its better moments the novel contributes to our culture’s rich seam of aging slacker angst. Correction: aging male slacker angst. Aren’t there any bummed-out women past the age of 35 expressing their feelings?

Egan it seems, like so many other artists and writers of her generation, has a case of the blues.