Fifty Percent Off: A Novel of Love in the Age of Packaging [Hardcover]

Karen Salmansohn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1993

Takes a humorous look at an attractive single woman's quest for love in the 1990s, following the creative director of an ad agency in her hunt for the single, heterosexual man of her dreams. 25,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Upbeat and wisecracking Sasha Schwartz, a 29-year-old advertising copywriter, has just lost her lover of four years--yes, it's another wry and broadly comic look at the problems of being single and female in New York City. Sasha has a firm support system in place, and her friends Frannie and Viv put aside their own staggering romantic problems to offer advice. But although she is in the business of creating illusions, Sasha takes a realistic approach to finding a new love. Should she frequent the laundromat? Is her dentist single? What about the party in TriBeCa? As this first-time novelist follows Sasha in her quest, she deftly satirizes the cocktail party, the trendy art scene, the cutthroat advertising industry. She even offers a hilarious view of some unique female bonding. Eventually, Sasha's dear friend Jerry, art director at the agency, comes up with the most compelling suggestion: Why not try witchcraft? This novel tells a slender tale indeed, but it is aided by a staccato delivery, razor-sharp one-liners and a well-incarnated wise Jewish mother.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

``Becoming involved in a relationship is a lot like being lured into a Hare Krishna cult''--so begins this long narrative necklace of good-natured one-liners posing as a novel of twentysomething love. Sasha Schwartz is a wisecracking young N.Y.C. ad-agency ``creative director'' in charge of writing toothpaste and paper- towel commercials. She spends her free time (i.e., most of the time her boss isn't watching her) talking on the phone with girlfriends Viv and Frannie and writing jingles about her ex-boyfriend, Bryce, who has recently left her--she suspects for a man named Glen, whose letters she's found in the apartment she and Bryce shared. (``Girl meets boy/Then boy meets boy/That's the story line these days/Oh, it's no joy/To love a gay,'' goes a typical ditty.) That's the plot; and the only event in the next 250 pages that could possibly be seen as an advancement of that plot is when Sasha runs into Bryce in a bar and is introduced to Glen, who is blond-haired, miniskirted, voluptuous, and very much a female. (Oh, well--so much Sasha's previous obsessional worries about AIDS.) Otherwise, the book is a jumble of Bob Dylan quotes mixed in with bathetic reminiscences of Sasha's childhood, Viv's phone harangues, rejected ad copy, rash jokes, secondary characters' glowing assessments of Sasha's talents, character, and looks, one whole chapter devoted to numbers (``461, 462, 463...'') representing Sasha counting sheep as she tries to forget Bryce and sleep--and three or four authentically funny moments, all of which take place in the presence of Sasha's personable fellow ad-agency worker Jerry, known as ``Jerriatrics.'' A pinch of promise in a sophomoric brew--and hardly the work of the ``Nora Ephron of the MTV generation,'' as the publisher's promo copy claims. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 265 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (June 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312094655
• ISBN-13: 978-0312094652
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,473,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

KAREN SALMANSOHN is a best-selling author and motivational speaker with 25 published books, including Good Karma in a Box; The 8-Minute Guts Builder; Even God Is Single, So Stop Giving Me a Hard Time; and the best-selling How to Change Your Entire Life by Doing Absolutely Nothing. She lives in New York City.