If you wanted a novel that does for advertising what John Grisham did for Law then do not by this book. If however you want to read about the politics, the dirt the back stabbing and the gossip that goes around an Ad Agency then you will love this book and should put it up there on your must read list. E: A Novel is a book set in a fictitious UK Ad Agency called Miller Shanks.
The book follows the year in the life of the agency and covers the trials and tribulations faced by the agency staff on their various clients.
The two most noteworthy of these are 1. The massive year-end pitch for Coca Cola 2. The big tropical shoot for ?The Love Channel? a major cable TV channel. The book is novel literally in that the book is entirely in the form of e-mails between staff members and friends. The mails literally bounce backwards and forwards between top - management, the creative team, the accounts managers, personnel, secretaries and other members of the Miller Shanks Company. And are the e-mails only work related? Hell No and that?s why we love it. They are anything but polite work related mail and include all the bitchy, back stabbing, rude and un-work related e-mails that are usually covered under the heading of blatant abuse of a company?s resources.
There are a large number of characters in the book from the spiteful MD to the hippy creative director to the very laddish creative team and the secretaries that they are always trying to pull. The book is full of the usual office asides of who fancies who, who hates whose guts, Who is playing office politics, and who got drunk and had sex with whom and in which part of the office! The book takes a while to get into as the number of characters and the format of e-mails means you end up reading the pages again and again to get the low down on who is who.
This only lasts for about 10 pages or so as most of the main protagonists are introduced by then and once they are each one gets his own distinct voice and you find reading books in e-mail form is virtually second nature and life at Miller Shanks is so interesting that you start laughing out loud every couple of pages and you do not want to put the book down at all.
If you work in an office and you send mail you will love this book as every character bears some resemblance to someone you know in your own office right down to the Indian IT man. You quickly find yourself rooting for the lads in the creative team who you would want to be your best mates and siding with them against the MD. There are hilarious cameos from MD?s of Miller Shanks Offices worldwide and one of these MD?s Mr. Pertti Van Helden is the real highlight of the book.
Famed Swedish popsters AQUA also make an appearance. Matt Beaumont has managed to keep all the threads of the plot together very well and as the mayhem unravels the book if anything picks up rather than loses pace and when you finish it you are left with wanting that little bit more.
I adored the book and If you really want to know how Aqua, Coke and Mr Pertti Van Helden fit together then in Pertti?s own words please be reading this book. It is entertaining!