Money Wanders: A Novel [Hardcover]

Eric Dezenhall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 25, 2002

Jonah Eastman, disgraced Presidential pollster, is summoned home to Atlantic City by his ailing grandfather Mickey Price--a legendary Atlantic City gangster and owner of the Golden Prospect casino. When Mickey dies, Jonah is "persuaded" by mob boss Mario Vanni to help improve his image by launching a misinformation campaign aimed at gaining public acceptance and ultimately a way "outta the life."

So Jonah goes to war through a comical and audacious manipulation of the media which includes online rumoring, exploiting romantic myths of the mob, and orchestrating a union-backed pseudo-vigil after Vanni is arrested. To pull off these stunts, he enlists the help of his grandfather's Prohibition-era cronies, pimply-faced hackers, a disgruntled Secret Service agent, a cagey Washington lobbyist, a slick Philadelphia publicist, and a street-fighting rabbi.

Money Wanders is a wild and uproarious tour of spin and media manipulation from the lobbied halls of Congress to the dilapidated boardwalk of Atlantic City.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Beltway spin doctor Dezenhall (Nail `Em! Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Businesses) tries his hand at fiction with this comic caper about a Jewish pollster put to work for an aging South Jersey/Philly Mafia don. Middle-aged Jonah Eastman, a D.C. spin doctor for hire whose business is in the doldrums, is summoned back to his Jersey home by his ailing grandfather Mickey, an old-school Jewish capo for the local Cosa Nostra kingpin, Mario Vanni. Mickey's cryptic deathbed missive to his nervous grandson directs Jonah to take on the don as a client (Vanni needs a fast image makeover in order to qualify for an Atlantic City casino license "To be a gangster anymore is an acid trip. There's nothin' left in the life but the fantasies about the life") and gives Jonah a veiled hint about some buried Jewish treasure long hidden from the Italians. Rallying support from a PR colleague, Mickey's Jewish gangsters (one memorably named "Irv the Curve") and a teenage hacker (nicknamed "Dorkus"), Jonah launches a massive disinformation campaign intended to paint Vanni as a pillar of the community. Along the way, Jonah manages to fall in love with a klezmer musician at Mickey's funeral, tick off Vanni's psychopathic consigliere (incongruously named "Noel") and become probably the only pollster to set up shop inside a giant roadside elephant. Mixing light comedy with a nostalgic look at the Jersey shore and the days when the mishpocha and the paisani were kinsmen, if uneasy ones, Dezenhall's debut is a breezy alternative to The Sopranos and shows that with the right press, even savages can be saints.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Readers won't believe this is a first novel: sharply drawn characters, delightful dialogue, and a plot that not only delivers the goods but does so with piles of panache. Even the premise is a knockout: an Atlantic City mobster is having trouble getting a casino license, so he hires a prominent Washington pollster to beef up his public image. Dezenhall complicates things by making the pollster the grandson of another prominent mobster, providing him with solid grounding in the shady world of organized crime and giving him a nemesis, a grudge-bearing gangster with a deliciously violent streak. The author, a noted "spin" expert (he's president of Nichols-Dezenhall, a Washington crisis- management firm), fills the novel with scads of delicious detail. It is oddly thrilling to watch pollster Jonah Eastman marshal his troops, work his magic, and tell the American public what to think. Not only does Dezenhall have a sure grasp of his material, he also has a nice comedic touch. Like Donald E. Westlake, when he's in his comedy mode, Dezenhall starts us off chuckling, moves us easily to guffaws, and then winds up with some nicely timed belly laughs. (This novel does bear a slight similarity to Westlake's The Fugitive Pigeon, 1965, but only in its mob-played-for-laughs aspect.) If this debut is any indication, Dezenhall's career as a novelist shouldn't need much spinning to take off. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (February 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312282753
• ISBN-13: 978-0312282752
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,103,659 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eric Dezenhall is an author and damage control expert based in Washington, D.C. He is the CEO of Dezenhall Resources, a nationally recognized high-stakes communications firm. He frequently lectures in academic and business circles, and regularly appears as a damage control expert in the international media. He has appeared on network television and radio outlets including NPR, CNN, FOX, CNBC, and MSNBC; and has been quoted in publications including Fortune, USA Today, Forbes, and the Washington Post. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today and is a regular contributor to the Daily Beast and Huffington Post.

Eric is the author of eight books, including two non-fiction texts on crisis communications and corporate witch hunts, entitled Damage Control: How to Get the Upper Hand When Your Business is Under Attack (Portfolio, 2007) and Nail 'Em! Confronting High Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Businesses (Prometheus Books, 1999), both of which have been widely cited in business, media and academic circles. He is also the author of six novels: Money Wanders (St. Martin's, 2002), Jackie Disaster (Minotaur, 2003), Shakedown Beach (St. Martin's, 2004), Turnpike Flameout (St. Martin's, 2006) and Spinning Dixie (St. Martin's, 2007). His sixth novel, The Devil Himself (Thomas Dunne, St. Martin's), which deals with the collaboration between the U.S. Navy and organized crime during World War II to secure American ports from Nazi attack, will be published in July 2011.

As an investigative writer, Eric wrote articles about the newly discovered diaries of the late mobster Meyer Lansky, which appeared in the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, the Baltimore Sun, The New Republic, and Ethical Corporation. A documentary he co-produced on organized crime aired on the Discovery Channel.

Eric is a graduate of Dartmouth College, where he studied political science and the news media. He serves as a Trustee of the Institute for Responsible Citizenship, an organization devoted to fostering educational and career opportunities for outstanding young African-American men. Eric was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition. He lives near Washington, D.C., with his family.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Money Wanders wanders, May 6, 2002

By 

David L Zumchak (Rochester, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Money Wanders: A Novel (Hardcover)

This has a great concept, and the first two-thirds are quite enjoyable. However, toward the end, it seems to lose its way. What I assumed to be the main plot -- the PR campaign for Vanni -- gets wrapped up abruptly, and other issues take the forefront. Unfortunately, I found those other issues less interesting, and more unlikely.

Overall, not a bad book though.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MONEY WANDERS - AN AWESOME COMIC THRILLER, February 6, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Money Wanders: A Novel (Hardcover)

The publication of MONEY WANDERS marks the beginning of the rise of South Jersey as a literary landscape. From the "Pineys" of the Pine Barrens to the mobsters of the Boardwalk and South Philly, author Dezenhall captures the essence of the region in this comic thriller. For those of us who grew up in the area, Dezenhall makes our home a wonderland: Lucy the Margate Elephant becomes more than a roadside oddity, she becomes a mob hideout; the Boardwalk isn't just a bunch of wood hammered together, it's the "Ribbonoff Highway" to the rest of America; and ordinary people on the beach become wizards and goblins. Finally, Springsteen no longer has to sing New Jersey solo.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Money Yawnders, February 27, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Money Wanders: A Novel (Hardcover)

Based on the nine reviews above, the real-life DC Spin Doctor may be plying his trade at amazon.com the way Jonah did in this novel, which, actually, happens to be a reasonably good read. The 3 typos I picked up on (e.g. "soliders" vs. "soldiers") clued me in on what overall appears to be a perfunctory effort in plot by the author and in detail by his acknowledged resources. I don't think Bobby DeNiro will pick up on this project.