Company Man

I remember reading about Joseph Finder in The Writer that he had a note above his writing desk that said something like, "Surprise, Reverse, or Reveal." Joseph is apparently commited to, on EVERY page, reveal something, have a major reversal, or surprise the reader in a major way.

I had not tried any of Joseph Finder's fiction before I read this article, but the mention of this sign in his office intrigued me enough to give him a try.

Lately, I have been trying to pick authors who have a few published works, starting with their earlier work and moving through their career, trying to track how they grow as writers. With Finder, I broke from this pattern partially by beginning with a book that, while written after four previous novels, was the first in a genre - the corporate thriller - whose creation is credited mainly to Finder himself. The book was Paranoia, and I'm not going to go into detail here, but it was entertaining for the most part. Ironically, I completely forgot about Finder's sign before I read Paranoia, and so I was not on the lookout for the every-page occurance of a reversal, surprise, or revelation.

I began his second novel in the corporate thriller genre, Company Man, encouraged by his "first" outing, and ready to track the surprises and reversals. I'll admit I was skeptical about a person's ability to do what Finder aspires to do on every page, but reading Company Man, I now understand how its done.

Currently, I am 350 pages into the 550 page book. That's 350 surprises, revelations, or reversals. I'll tell you which one he uses the most: it isn't surprises or reversals. HIs mainstay is to reveal something to the writer.

For instance, on page 1 he reveals the protagonist's name is Nick Conover. On page 30 he reveals that Nick held a tumbler against the automatic ice maker of his Sub Zero refrigerator and listened to the ice clink into the glass. On page 129 he reveals that Audrey, another main character, leaned over to kiss her good-for-nothing husband.

See how easy it is? Surprise, reverse, or reveal sounds really cool until you realize that the writer is not held to any specific proportion. My bedspread is brown. See? I just revealed something. Now all I have to do is fill a page with a bunch of other information and I've met my goal.

Also, the quality of each surprise, reversal or revelation is not being scrutinized either. Seriously, this is one of those books that gives me hope that I'll one day be able to put together a fun little novel that a publisher will pick up. I'm not saying this is terrible, I'm just saying that there's loads and loads and loads of words describing events that are either ludicrous, inconsistent, or just plain non-engaging.

Did I mention Nick's job? He's the CEO of an office furniture company.

What?

Oh, but that's okay, I'm sure the specifics of that mind-deadening industry are not gone into in much detail, you think. Yes?

How wrong you are, my friend. Out of 350 pages, probably 40 have been dedicated to dropping hints at Finder's understanding of this "more-complex-and-engaging-than-you-might-think" industry. That's about 39 a half pages too many.

350 pages and countless unmotivated bad decisions by the characters down; 200 pages and, hopefully, some sort of righteous conspiracy that helps redeem this paperweight of a book, to go.

I'll keep you posted.