Expert satirist Benjamin Cheever, author of Famous After Death , uses his dark sense of humor to deliver another searing look at suburbia. Literary editor Stuart Cross and his wife Andie, a film critic, hire the talented Louise to be nanny to their two young girls. Louise's perfection, however, begins to irritate the ambitious, but less accomplished Stuart and Andie, and soon the parents' jealousy gets the better of them.
Ben Cheever was a senior editor for Reader's Digest for 11 years and has published three novels. In 1995, however, his latest book proposal had been rejected, so he went looking for work. This is his wry account of the dozen jobs he held as an entry-level employee in the service sector. As he filled out applications, no one seemed to mind that he was vastly overqualified for the positions. At CompUSA, passing a urine test was more important. The jobs were disorienting. At Nobody Beats the Wiz, despite team building meetings, employees were fiercely competitive for sales. At Cosi Sandwich Bar, other employees called him "Gramps." He loved selling cars, but working as a Cadillac salesman netted him less than minimum wage. From his position on the other side of the service counter, Ben Cheever gained a new respect for the millions of people who work long hours for low wages. Now that downsizing is a permanent part of the workplace, his observations provide a valuable perspective of how our jobs define who we are.
As a child of the esteemed writer John Cheever, Benjamin Cheever grew up in a household filled with books. For 11 years, Benjamin worked as an editor. When he started writing, however, he found his literary voice in satire. Famous After Death is a darkly comic look at some of America's favorite obsessions. Noel Hammersmith, an overweight editor of diet books, yearns to be loved by beautiful women. If he can slim down, perhaps this will happen. If he were famous, it would help, too. As a bewildering series of bombs goes off in Noel's neighborhood, he is contacted by a visionary writer who calls himself Che Guevara. Through him, Noel sees a brilliant way to attain thinness and notoriety at the same time. Cheever sets up his brilliant satire with an editorial preface, where he introduces the novel as the authoritative text of The Compleat Wordsworth Bomber. By alternating Noel's journal entries, letters, and annotations added by unnamed editors, Cheever skillfully builds layers of humor into this tongue-in-cheek profile. An exclusive interview with Benjamin Cheever concludes the audio production.
