The Learners: A Novel [Hardcover]

Chip Kidd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 19, 2008

Set in the early 1960s, The Learners is the stand alone sequel to Kidd's previous novel, The Cheese Monkeys. Always entertaining and often moving, The Learners is the story of Happy, a young graphic designer who lands his first job at a wacky advertising firm in New Haven, Connecticut. Among his colourful co-workers is Sketch, the lovable, aging illustrator whose finely-crafted drawings of potato chips are regarded by Happy as near masterpieces; Tip, the quick-witted copy-writer who's always hunting for the next snappy slogan; and Mimi, the cold, eccentric matriarch, who treats her enormous dog as if he's her husband. Happy fits right in among these likable eccentrics, and together, they struggle to hold onto their most important client, Cringle Potato Chips, and land the new and lucrative Buckle Shoes account.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A sequel to book designer Kidd's first novel, The Cheese Monkeys, this beautifully composed paean to pre-computer graphic design pitches recent graduate Happy (his nickname), now 21, into the mercantile halls of down-at-the-heels New Haven ad agency Spears, Rakoff and Ware. Kidd paints the agency with all the customary conventions of a mid-century office culture farce: lacquered secretaries, lunchtime scotches and broken-down businessmen. Happy wiles away his time in blissful drudgery until he fields a call for designing a tiny ad for a seemingly innocuous psychological study. The study is being run by (real-life psychologist) Stanley Milgram, and Happy is unable to resist volunteering; little surprise for readers that Happy finds himself a participant in Milgram's notorious Obedience to Authority experiment, playing the role of The Teacher who is ordered to shock The Learner with near-lethal doses of electricity. Though character development is less the point than jokes about behaviorism and old school office culture's last gasps, the experiment teaches Happy more than he ever hoped to know. The jokes are sometimes dippy, and some of the typographical pyrotechnics are on the twee side. But Kidd's ebullience and generosity in unpacking the art and practice of graphic design carry the novel. (Feb.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Graphic designer and novelist Chip Kidd is best known for his smart book-jacket designs for Donna Tartt, David Sedaris, and Michael Crichton, among others. He used his innovative design elements to explore the relationship between form and content in The Cheese Monkeys, and he employs the same design virtuosity here, though critics diverged in opinion about how much virtuosity, exactly, was enough. While most reviewers praised Kidd’s design talent, a few thought he courted gimmickry with his page and font designs, and others thought he didn’t go far enough. With the exception of the New York Times Book Review, however, reviewers agreed on Kidd’s ample literary talentâ€"his dark, satirical wit, solid characterizations, and ability to explore the dark abyss of the human soul. For pure originality, there’s little else like The Learnersâ€"except, of course, The Cheese Monkeys, where readers may wish to start.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 258 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1st Scribner Hardcover Ed edition (February 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743255240
• ISBN-13: 978-0743255240
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #874,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny and clever, July 8, 2008

By 

A. Butterfield (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Learners: A Novel (Hardcover)

If you've read The Cheese Monkeys and you liked it, you'll definitely like this, because it just follows on from where that novel left off. Which is, on the whole, a good thing.

It means that for those of us who are graphic designers, we get to read the second novel (okay maybe there are more but I don't know about them) about a graphic designer. That's pretty cool for designers. If you're not a designer then I don't think it matters since designers probably read novels about policemen quite happily.

Having said that, The Learners doesn't just happen to be about a graphic designer. Since it's also written (and designed) by a graphic designer, there's quite a lot of stuff in it about graphic design that borders on the educational. You may learn something about typefaces.

Back to the story: it's about a guy called Happy, who appears to have no romantic or sexual interest in any of the other characters, which is a bit odd. In fact, this book doesn't deal with sex at all except for about three pages when it still doesn't, not really.

It's actually mostly about the main character's reaction to an experiment he takes part in to test how much one human will hurt another if told to by somebody they trust. It's based on an experiment that really did take place in the 1950s.

The setting is the best part of the book though: a small designer's office in New Haven, the sort of place that doesn't exist in today's world of identikit offices. Instead of Project desk systems, there are poky offices with glass doors and polished wood, rolls of paper, the smell of ink, eccentric people and general cosy confusion. That's very well portrayed.

But the story seems a bit thin and kind of there just to hang all the graphic designer stuff on, all the clever stuff the (very clever) author wants to tell us in a that slightly cutesy post Salinger style he adopts that could get annoying but which I happen to like.

I don't know whether everyone would like it, but I loved it.

And the cover artwork is, as you'd expect, superb.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent sequel, September 9, 2008

By 

rs - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Learners: A Novel (Hardcover)

I agree with the other reviewers... if I hadn't loved "The Cheese Monkeys," I never would have read this book, but I'm glad I did, because it was excellent. For those who don't like Kidd's writing style, it could get annoying, but for those who do, it's another gem. Overall a great novel, very fast read, makes you think about psychology a little bit too.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't read this book..., July 7, 2008

By 

Mark "Mark" (Twin Cities, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Learners: A Novel (Hardcover)

...unless you read The Cheese Monkeys first. I was familiar with Mr. Kidd's graphic design for some time, and saw him speak at the Gravity Free Conference. It was such an enjoyable talk I ordered The Cheese Monkeys online, and it was waiting for me on my arrival home. I was out of town all week and thought I would just read a few chapters before bed. The way I figure it Kidd owes me a good nights sleep. When I finished the book I waited a few hours and went out and bought The Learners, devouring it as well. I'm not sure what makes a book great, but for me, both of these are in that category. The Cheese Monkeys is such a nice nostalgic look back at college and the experiences that make that time so amazing, as well as the time travel back to a time when creating art didn't involve a mouse and a delete key. It also has a girl, the type that I would have either married or taken out a restraining order against, I'm not sure in what order.

And The Learners picks up where The Cheese Monkeys left off, with the college student getting his first job, part of his quest born of his college experience, that once again pays homage to the day when things were thought out before they were created, because creating took cumulative effort.

I'll say no more, to avoid spoiling the story. But I think these books need to both be read, in the proper order. They paint the same kind of historic picture in my head that Mad Men does, where you can smell the stale cigarette smoke and picture the Boomerang Formica. Enjoy. I certainly did.