New York, NY (PRWEB) July 6, 2005
Flim-flam artists, imperial CEOs, Wall Street piranhas, impatient mobsters, smarmy pols, five-star spinmeisters and assorted mountebanks abound in "Ultimate Severance," a highly satirical and imaginative new novel that provides a public relations guidebook to the reality of spin and humbuggery in the 21st Century.
The novel by James Baar, author of "Spinspeak II: The Dictionary of Language Pollution" and editor of "The Spinspeak Letter" weblog http://www.spinspeak.com, tells how the spinspeak "language of happiness" combined with a little inventive muscle can solve the diciest of challenges including the exit of inconvenient corporate leaders who block billion-dollar deals.
The time is a familiar future after the War on Terror has been won by accidental launch of new "lite 'n kleen" nukes. A culture of euphoria, ethical and social impairment and calls for numerous peace dividends once again engulf America. Third Party Independent Lonnie Dee, super-nova guitar player and TV talk-show host, is casually regnant in the White House.
Here clearly is an environment of business opportunity for financially-bleeding Trotter Pugg Mitchell, a world PR giant, and its dodgy clients such as Old Masters Originals, a maker of "limited edition" reproduction great art. And when the agency teams up with Mob Boss Joey Lasagna to abet dicey corporate megamergers, they provide Wall Street raiders with a new quick-fix ultimate severance package: an innovative Corporate Governance Program powered by Trotter's specialty, the "language of happiness."
Cash flow gushes. Money is well laundered. Spindocs, nurtured in the liberal-conservative culture wars and trained in the magic of media manipulation, abound. Trotter President Marvin Runnymede sets up a European "multi-use facility" in a 500-year old chateau in Provence; plans to sell "Instant PR Agency" franchises to Third World countries, and hires has-been "Greats" to promote dubious products and ventures.
But fortune's warming smile becomes a sardonic grin. So many stubborn CEOs undergo fatal retirements in colorful circumstances around the world that a powerful U.S. Senator decides to advance his presidential ambitions with the usual TV-circus hearings. Well-cooked dishes of suspicion, buncombe and open doubt are served to the media.
In the ensuing rush for strategic exits, winners and losers fake out, promote and wound each other in surprising ways; the faux rond wheels of justice grind and clank, and the "language of happiness" covers all.
Baar has been "a student of spinspeak and its development" since his early days as a UPI correspondent and editor in Washington and many years as an international public relations executive for various major corporations and agencies. He is the author of an earlier satirical novel, "The Great Free Enterprise Gambit," four books on politics and military technology including "Polaris!" and is completing a collection of short fiction, "The Real Thing and Other Tales." He was graduated from Union College with a major in philosophy.
About the book: Paperback: 336 pages; Publisher: AuthorHouse; ISBN: 1420838474; LCCN: 2005902026; Cover price: $19.95 Available Now: Online and local bookstores.
Contact:
Jim Baar
jimbar@spinspeak.com
Visit the Spinspeak Letter Website http://www.spinspeak.com
Voice: 401-331-2653
Fax: 508-861-0226
For review copy: books @ omegacom.com
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