From Publishers Weekly
This novel's narrator (who appropriately remains nameless throughout) works in the public relations department of a large, unnamed Company, located in a nondescript building in a suburb of a decaying city. As a speechwriter for the Company bigwigs, he must, day after day, find new ways to say the same old thing, new ways to say nothing. Along with his friend Conrad, the hero manages to keep a somewhat sane perspective on the Company, despite the fact that "psychological lobotomies" are encouraged by the top executives, to whom "expressionless faces, flat voices, sycophantic smiles, and shuffling gait are a source of deep and unending pleasure." But it is the beginning of the end of the narrator's humanity (and the start of his meteoric rise in the corporate hierarchy) when he is recruited to participate in the Troubled Employee Department's rigorous executive shape-up program. Walker, who has been a speechwriter for a number of corporate and political luminaries, writes in an effective deadpan style, developing a clever idea into a novel that is at once extremely funny and alarming. January 16
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Walker has been a speechwriter for Lee Iacocca and other Detroit executives (and national politicans), so it is no surprise that his first novel evokes the automotive world. His nameless narrator (called the Speechwriter) works for ``the best company in the world,'' but feels alienated by his job. So, beginning with paranoia and booze, a self-destructive spiral leads to the company psychiatrist's office and ends finally in the ``Troubled Employee Department.'' This den of corporate evil is predictably gestapoesque, and after torture and humiliation the Speechwriter emerges as the perfect executive, willing to kill his only friend. Burdened with cliches, this first novel will appeal only to a very limited readership. Paul E. Hutchison, English Dept., Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
