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Russell Wiley is in deep trouble. A media executive for the failing Daily Business Chronicle, his career is teetering on the brink of collapse, and his sexless marriage is fast approaching its expiration date. With his professional and personal lives floundering, it's no wonder Russell is distracted, unhappy, and losing faith in himself.
Making matters worse are his scheming boss, a hot-shot new consultant determined to see Russell ousted, and the beguiling colleague whose mere presence has a disconcerting effect on Russell's starved libido. Disaster seems imminent - and that's before he makes a careless mistake that could cost the paper millions.
Russell realizes he must take drastic action if he is going to salvage his career, his love life, and what little remains of his self-respect.
Sardonic, edgy, and true to life, this gripping novel offers an insider's view into a newspaper's inner sanctum and the people who oil the wheels of this increasingly outdated machine.
About the author:
London-born Richard Hine began his career as an advertising copywriter. After moving to New York at the age of 24, he held creative and marketing positions at Adweek, Time magazine, where he became publisher of Time’s Latin America edition, and The Wall Street Journal, where he became vice president of marketing and business development. While at The Wall Street Journal, he oversaw the marketing campaign behind the launch of the Journal’s Weekend Edition in 2005.
Richard Hine’s fiction has been published in numerous literary publications, including London Magazine and Brooklyn Review. He is also a winner of and two-time finalist in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest, and an interview of him appears in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest Book (Andrews McMeel Publishing,2008). He lives in New York City with the novelist Amanda Filipacchi.
RUSSELL WILEY IS OUT TO LUNCH is his first novel.
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In The Press
“This wry contemporary comedy — one part Glengarry Glen Ross and two parts Sophie Kinsella — will make readers cheer. Russell Wiley (works) for one of a dying breed, The Daily Business Chronicle newspaper. Rumor says former shopping cart magnate Larry Ghosh (pronounced “gauche”), new owner of the media company that publishes the Chronicle, is going to dismantle the paper. Can Russell save his job, and the paper? Everything is against him, from the new consultant with his freshly minted MBA, suspenders, and files with neatly printed labels, to a distracting crush on a coworker (made worse by his current lack of a sex life and increasingly disinterested wife), to Cindy the office “deadweight” who manages to take credit for everything without doing any actual work. It’s time for Russell to take control. Along with the mistakes, betrayals, and inevitable sports metaphors (“swing for the fences,” “be the ball, stay in the zone”) come enough wins to outweigh the losses: proof that when the world goes mad, “the only sensible way to respond is by acting crazy.” A winner in every way”
—Publishers Weekly
“A rollicking satire about the slitherings of corporate snakes and the gambits of conjob consultants in the desperate world of modern media”
—Paul Steiger, Editor-in-Chief, ProPublica.org
“A perfectly dry satire of the particular hell that is newspaper publishing circa Right Now”
—Lucinda Rosenfeld, author of I'm So Happy for You: a novel about best friends
