Meet Bobby Kahn: a smart enough, decent enough man of middle-of-the-road tastes and weaknesses, he's network TV's boy-wonder programming executive - or rather was, until the morning he was unceremoniously fired. Frantic to save face before the news gets out, he lunges for a job running a sorry family cable business in the cozy town of New Bedlam, Rhode Island. It won't take Bobby Kahn long to learn that the length in miles between New York City and New Bedlam does not do justice to the distance between the two worlds.
But that itself only begins to explain the gulf in taste and instincts between Bobby Kahn and the Kings, one of the more rewardingly dysfunctional families in recent American fiction. The patriarch, Dom, who made his fortune in car dealerships and lucked into a cable monopoly in the industry's dark ages, has ceded control of the three networks to his three quarreling children: Annie, the sincere na•f who runs Eureka!, the pretentious arts channel; Skyler, the cocky social climber who runs BoomerBox, the old-sitcom rerun channel; and the family black sheep, the obnoxious Kenny, who presides over the Comic Book Channel, a safe house for ill-socialized comic book devotees. Complicating matters, Bobby learns, is the extent to which the family is in foul odor in New Bedlam. The Kings' family secrets, and the enemies they have made along the way, are just a few of the obstacles Bobby has to overcome if he's going to turn around King Cable and make it back to the big leagues.
A bit The Devil Wears Prada transplanted to Richard Russo country, New Bedlam is a richly entertaining comic novel whose spit-take-quality laughs carry with them a wealth of sharply-observed insights into America's culture industry and the people who control it, from an author who shows us he's completely unafraid of biting the hand.
But that itself only begins to explain the gulf in taste and instincts between Bobby Kahn and the Kings, one of the more rewardingly dysfunctional families in recent American fiction. The patriarch, Dom, who made his fortune in car dealerships and lucked into a cable monopoly in the industry's dark ages, has ceded control of the three networks to his three quarreling children: Annie, the sincere na•f who runs Eureka!, the pretentious arts channel; Skyler, the cocky social climber who runs BoomerBox, the old-sitcom rerun channel; and the family black sheep, the obnoxious Kenny, who presides over the Comic Book Channel, a safe house for ill-socialized comic book devotees. Complicating matters, Bobby learns, is the extent to which the family is in foul odor in New Bedlam. The Kings' family secrets, and the enemies they have made along the way, are just a few of the obstacles Bobby has to overcome if he's going to turn around King Cable and make it back to the big leagues.
A bit The Devil Wears Prada transplanted to Richard Russo country, New Bedlam is a richly entertaining comic novel whose spit-take-quality laughs carry with them a wealth of sharply-observed insights into America's culture industry and the people who control it, from an author who shows us he's completely unafraid of biting the hand.
