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Lightning Rods
A Literary Fiction Novel by Helen DeWitt
Subgenres:
- Satire,
- Workplace Fiction,
- Sexual Satire
This book is for you if you're into...
- Satirical takedowns of corporate culture and office absurdity
- Plots built around outlandish business schemes
- Provocative humor that skewers American attitudes toward sex and success
"All I want is to be a success. That's all I ask." Joe fails to sell a single set of the Encyclopedia Britannica in six months. Then fails to sell a single Electrolux and must eat 126 pieces of homemade pie, served up by his would-be customers who feel sorry for him.
Holed up in his trailer, Joe finds an outlet for his frustrations in a series of ingenious sexual fantasies, and at last strikes gold. His brainstorm, Lightning Rods, Inc., will take Joe to the very top — and to the very heart of corporate insanity — with an outrageous solution to the spectre of sexual harassment in the modern office.
An uproarious, hard-boiled modern fable of corporate life, sex, and race in America, Helen DeWitt's Lightning Rods brims with the satiric energy of Nathanael West and the philosophic import of an Aristophanic comedy of ideas. Dewitt continues to take the novel into new realms of storytelling — as the timeliness of Lightning Rods crosses over into timelessness.
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