Veteran Hollywood entertainment mogul David Levy, creator and/or originator of such shows as "The Addams Family", "Name That Tune", "Bonanza", and "The Bob Newhart Show", knows the world of big business better than anyone, and has seen the struggle for power that breaks and makes careers in the blink of an eye. A former presidential speech writer, producer for CBS, and programmer for NBC, Levy deftly pulls back the curtain on seedy, cut-throat corporate America in "Executive Jungle", an autobiographical novel of interrelated stories about a Madison Avenue advertising agency. It centres on the figures who struggle to get to the top of the Otis & Meade agency, run stealthily yet firmly by ageing chief James Hornwell.Motivated by their own insatiable greed and need for recognition Hornwell's shining stars find themselves in an endless struggle for survival, battling friends, enemies, and even themselves, while forming alliances that will end in honour or dishonour. Sure to raise an eyebrow or two in the Hollywood and New York scenes, the ten suspenseful, spicy, and revealing segments that form this novel offer a fictionalised who's-who of powerbrokers network presidents, producers, writers, and executives populating the business for forty years.
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Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
Levys fifth (Potomac Jungle, not reviewed) takes on Madison Avenue and the advertising game much as its templateFrederick Wakeman's The Huckstersdid 50 years ago. In this thoroughly detailed business novel (much stronger than Wakemans light but sparky effort), with its old-timey pace, nobody worries about integrityall are too busy keeping their heads out of the sharks mouthor the lions maw. The ten segments here are linked by the career of bright and aggressive Steve Lane, who moves from a Philadelphia ad agency to Madison Avenue's Otis & Meade at nearly twice his former pay. O&M, it turns out, is in the throes of a top-level turnover: Meade's no longer there, and Otis is 64, apparently ready to retire, dump his wife, and go off with his 40-year-old secretary to a peaceful old age. Under Otis are the company's three top managers, one of whom must be his replacement. These three have formed a cabal to oust Otis through a stockholders' vote and take over the company themselves, but Otis beats them to the punch, appointing one of the trio's younger execs to his presidency while he becomes chairman. The second of the threesomething of a hotheadthen quits, and Otis has the president-to-be fire the third, after which he cans the new president (albeit with a velvet glove). At the other end of the frame, over 15 years later in ``Five O'Clock Deadline,'' Steve Lane (now top exec) is fighting for his life against a takeover by television personality Curly Ames, whom Steve himself brought into the fold from an Atlanta radio station and whose unpredictable personality has baited him to the number one ratings slotand turned him into a rapacious shark. Levy, a vastly accomplished entertainment executive who started with the Young & Rubicam ad agency in 1938 and also wrote many famous radio shows, knows whereof he writes and how some stabs can never be stanched. Bloody well done. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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