Anyone out there enjoy the movie "Goodfellas"? Remember Henry Hill, the voice-over and eventual rat, recounting the details of his sordid life, which featured plenty of money, persistent drug abuse, marital infidelity, and constant scheming and scamming? Well, this is exactly the type of life that Clancy Martin captures in HOW TO SELL, where Bobby Clark describes the shenanigans that certainly occur at shady practitioners in the jewelry business. IMO, this novel is "Goodfellas" or perhaps "The Sopranos", recast as a tawdry drama in the luxury goods industry. Not that it's my concern; but Clancy, make sure your agent tries to sell this property and concept to HBO.
HOW TO SELL came to my attention at the recent Brooklyn Book Festival. There, Martin was on a panel that discussed the subject "Money in Fiction". In general, the panel, which was sponsored by Bookforum, was primarily interested in the distorting effects of wealth, not how wealth is acquired. Regardless, Martin was the panelist with the insider's perspective and his book does convey the shameless dynamics of close-at-all-costs salesmanship. Anyone considering a sales job might first read this novel since it reveals what is sometimes necessary to get ahead. It also conveys the values that will rise to the top in most sales organizations and the values that many sales managers will use to judge performance.
The strongest element of HOW TO SELL is the scams. I'm not going back to count. But I'd guess Martin describes more than a dozen schemes and scams that jewelers use to rip off their customers, thereby lifting or creating profits. The scams exist, by the way, because customers are naďve and believe what their jewelers tell them. And Martin, I suppose, is basically saying that a corrupt and unregulated process produces a corrupt result. Anyway, this primer on jewelry scams is definitely eye-opening and, man, after I win Lotto, I'm buying my wife real estate, not jewelry.
The comparison to "Godfellas" is glib but legit. As I remember that movie, Henry Hill and Jimmy Doyle searched out crime and violence from the very beginning. Over time, the scope of their criminal activities increased and the craziness of their violence acquired ever more dire ramifications. But their characters didn't really evolve. (I think the first voice-over is: "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.") Likewise, the characters of Bobby Clark and his older brother Jimmy are set from the git-go. The first sentence of HOW TO SELL, for example, contains Bobby's admission: "...the first time I considered jewelry, I stole my mother's wedding ring. " Apparently, the Clark brothers were born with a knack, and even respect, for sleazy behavior.
HOW TO SELL is a solid four-star read and recommended for those who deny or have forgotten the fact that the animating principles of business are basically selfish. Ayn Rand certainly got this right although this fact leaves behind a trail of pathetic wreckage in Martin's involving novel.
