The P.R. Guy

"The P.R. Guy" is a comic novel in which a lay-about young narrator running out of unemployment insurance checks reluctantly takes a job as a Junior Account Executive in a P.R. firm that has as its client Alexander's Department store. When the narrator is enticed by a sexy banana heiress into joining a group of left-wing anarchists who regularly picket in front of Alexander's he finds himself in a bit of a quandary. Adding to his perplexity, the banana heiress turns out to be a lesbian and a hooker. Other members of the lefty group include a poet who speaks only in olde English, a stay-at-home husband whose wife supports his horse betting habit, a postal worker (who goes berserk and shoots up the Post Office), a con man who works in the same Alexander's stealing from the cash register, and the leader of the group, a commie apparatchik who tries to leap off the Brooklyn Bridge after Kruschev denounces Stalin. At Alexander's the narrator must deal with a stern female executive who demands sexual favors before approving his P.R. copy. Also on the scene is a gorgeous German aristocrat lady who spent the war years as a guest of Franco, and the narrator's boss who spends his days in the office splattering paint over abstract expressionist paintings. Underneath the craziness there is a sober and serious intent.