The Build-Up Boys

by Jeremy Kirk

From the jacket, "a high-powered novel about Public Relations," written by an author who claims he had to adopt a pen name to protect the "I have friends in business -- all-around good guys -- whose names I don't want attached to these fictional people." And he also didn't want himself tagged as the model for the book's protagonist, Clint Lorimer, a very bright guy with "a razor sharp brain (with which to knife any encroaching public relations man or woman), a thorough ignorance of such things as scruples, and a pure, unadulterated brazenness to do this sort of pearl-making successfully" -- but who also has "a tiny shred of self-respect," which is "what started his undoing."

Genres: Fiction

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1905

Reviews

[Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 1951 novel reads like a series arc of Mad Men (though we're never given much insight as to why Clint Lorimer, the protagonist, is as much of a heel as he is.) In some ways, he's more Roger Sterling - without the privileged background - than Don Draper and the whole novel is extremely well-written (and a lot more frank, though not graphic, about sex than I was expecting.)

As an aside, it's another one of those terrifyingly prescient novels about how public relations can turn a mediocre and untalented man whose only quality is inherited wealth into a viable political contender. Was this just something that was more present in the minds of our country's writers 60-70 years ago because their experience of the damage done by propaganda was so close and so devastating? Anyway, fictional PR guy Lorimer realizes before it's too late that the dingbat milk heir he's hustled into positions beyond his competence needs to be brought down a bit so that's good!

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 'lost' novel I was delighted to locate. Published under a pen name, it was not acknowledged anywhere normal I can find (lists of works in subsequent novels, obituaries, PR kits etc.), and only discovered when trying to rectify a discrepancy I found in a statement in the introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of "The Philadelphian" about the number of novels he had published led me to track down an interview with his daughter at the time of the anniversary where she offhandedly mentioned her fathers one work under a pen name.