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Bill Fitzhugh ListingsIf you cannot find what you want on this page, then please use our search feature to search all our listings. Click on Title to view full description
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Bill Fitzhugh Cross Dressing
HarperTorch 2002 0380806347 / 9780380806348 Paperback Very Good
0380806347 6.4 x 4.7 x 1.1 inches From Publishers Weekly What begins as an interesting equation of the advertising business and organized religion quickly degenerates into predictable slapstick humor in this somewhat crowded comic novel. Dan Steele, an up-and-coming creative director in a swank L.A. ad agency, is desperate to make partner. Trouble is, his manic-depressive mother, Ruth, periodically suffers bipolar episodes. Dan tries to help, but he's been living extravagantly and he's out of cash, so when lowly copywriter Scott Emmons comes up with the perfect ad campaign for a Japanese corporate client, Dan thinks it's only fair to steal Scott's idea. Scott goes postal with a .44 magnum, but before he can ventilate his sleazy superior, Dan has an unexpected visit from his long-lost twin brother, Michael, a priest back from a mission in Africa, where he witnessed Church and state corruption and tangled with a local warlord, who has left him with a terminal souvenir of his homeland. Dan switches identities with his brother so that Michael can be treated under his own health insurance, but Michael promptly dies and Dan is forced to continue his clerical impersonation to avoid felony insurance fraud. With the trappings of his former life repossessed and the maniacal Scott in pursuit, Dan finds a haven at last at a halfway house, where he meets Sister Peg, a transparently secular nun and antibureaucracy crusader. Sparks fly between the non-priest and non-nun; climax, fadeout and roll credits. Fitzhugh (Pest Control; The Organ Grinders) may have written Cross Dressing with deals in mind: according to the publisher, he even arranged with Seagram to feature their liquor products in his text. While he ably proves his comic wit on the printed page, and backs some of the novel's more informative sections with actual research, this novel is ultimately as slickly packaged and shallow as the industries it parodies. Film rights to Shady Acres/Universal Pictures and Shady Acres Entertainment. (June) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Library Journal Having taken on geneticists in his earlier effortsDof which his latest was The Organ GrindersDFitzhugh turns his gimlet eye almost nostalgically to such tried-and-true satirical targets as advertising, the Catholic Church, and Los Angeles, demonstrating their staying power. Everything is finally coming together for rising advertising executive Dan Steele. His latest campaign (stolen from a colleague) is clearly considered the equal of "Where's the Beef?" Beverly is ready to lead him through the Kama Sutra, page by Technicolor page. It is then that things predictably start to unravel. His wronged colleague goes ballistic, he misses his rendezvous with Beverly, and his credit cards max out. When his twin brother, a Roman Catholic priest, returns from Africa to die, Dan happily assumes his identity only to learn that it's all a matter of image. Before his past catches up with him, it turns out that this slick operator fits almost too comfortably into the new Cat-o-Lite Church ("less guilt; more forgiveness"). Fans of other outrageous caper books, say, those by Elmore Leonard or Donald E. Westlake, might want to sample Fitzhugh. Fans of The Simpsons might keep Cross Dressing in mind during the summer rerun season. For all larger public libraries.DBob Lunn, Kansas City P.L., MO Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Price:
4.87 USD
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