Byrdwhistle Option [Hardcover]

Robert H. Rimmer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1982

FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS! for a dizzy ridenot into the future, but the here and now! Byrdwhistle is a highly profitable mail order company where only married couples are employedwith varying hours that makes it possible for one, or the other, to be home when the kids come home from school. Byrdwhistles do not workthey play together and with other spouse's permission can relax in company sponsored "love rooms." You'll love Heyman Hyman Youman, the 62 year old maverick who created this utopia where jobs are rotated regularlyand no matter what job you dohusbands and wives, together, earn the median family income plus a spectacular share in the profit bonuses. All the new married employees have to do is pass an entrance exambased on Abraham Maslow's Theory Z management philosophy and become a transcender. But all hell breaks loose when Ralph Theimost, CEO of WIN Incorporated, a billion dollar conglomerate, and Ronald Coldaxe, his Director of Acquisitions, are determined to take over stock control of Byrdwhistle from the majority stock holder, Thornton Byrd now in his 70'swho sleeps with Youman's wife, occasionally. Even Coldaxe's wife, M'mmbecomes a pawn in the battle of wits as they try to make Byrdwhistle conform to old style economic reality.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

In the sixties and early seventies The Harrad Experiment and Proposition 31 became watchwords for the "hippie generation". As millions of students on campuses across the country read and talked about his books, little did they know, their hero was well past thirty.Bob started writing early in life. As a high school student in Massachusetts in the 1930s, he wrote articles for, as well as helped print and distribute, a small local magazine entitled Boy's Pal. He graduated from Bates College with a multi-discipline degree in English, Psychology and Philosophy and later obtained an MBA from Harvard. His life has been an eventful one. His military service during and after World War II included both at-home and overseas assignments. After his enlistment was up, Rimmer returned to the US and took a position in the family printing business. He spent the next twenty-five years of his life working, raising a family, and collecting his life experiences and formulating them into what would later become events and characters in his many novels.His first two novels, The Rebellion of Yale Marratt and That Girl from Boston, were written before 1960 and were considered much too controversial to publish. However, after years of mail-order sales through a small publisher in California, Rimmer's The Harrad Experiment was published by Bantam in 1967 and was finally available to a wide audience. Within a year over a million copies had been sold. More novels followed, including Proposition 31. All of these novels explored alternatives to traditional relationships and sexuality, subjects very much at the forefront of the public's interest in the 1970's. Now in his eighties, Bob Rimmer, always in the vanguard in his advocacy of alternatives to the traditional monogamous relationship, becomes one of the first authors to recognize the potential of the Internet to bring his books to millions of new readers. With fourteen novels to his credit and still going strong, this author has not only bro --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 409 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (October 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879751843
• ISBN-13: 978-0879751845
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,997,052 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars This book deserves to be back in print!, June 12, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Baltimore, Md) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Byrdwhistle Option (Hardcover)

This is another of Robert Rimmer's (The Harrad Experiment) achievable utopia novels. Byrdwhistle takes Maslow's Theory Z, first enunciated in The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, and shows how it can be applied in the real world. If this sounds too dry, it isn't. Filled with laughter, love, caring and joyful sex, and suspense, Byrdwhistle will keep you reading to the last page. The annotated bibliography at the end alone is worth the price of the book.

In short, this is a book that makes you laugh, makes you think, and above all, gives you hope that a future such as envisioned by this novel can, and should, happen. The Byrdwhistle Option should be required reading at every business school.