Found in Fiction
From Theodore Dreiser’s 1912 The Financier and Sloan Wilson’s The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit in 1955 to, more recently, Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, the business novel is slippery to define and has had a tumultuous and confounding life cycle. Classic themes of the American work ethic and pursuit of happiness, parables of self-destructive pride, and tales of the remade man make this form useful to many types of people, from high school students to high-level executives. Many business novels address business issues directly while others are infused with subtle lessons, but only a few have stood the test of time and remain poignant reminders of the need for all readers to step outside themselves and learn from others’ experiences.
The Great Gatsby
Largely considered the greatest American novel, The Great Gatsby is also perhaps the best encapsulation of the American dream: Jay Gatsby, self-made, young, and rich, gazes longingly at the more exclusive lights of East Egg from his lofty new mansion. He wants more, he wants to belong, and the book is as much a testament to this rags-to-riches possibility of American life as it is a condemnation of such self-serving morals. Gatsby doesn’t contain as much Rockefeller in him as his business associates might think, but rather has a bleeding, bursting heart. Fitzgerald succeeds best at demonstrating how over-ambition robs Gatsby of this one thing that made him “Great” compared to his peers.
A Confederacy of Dunces
Destined to be remembered for its tragedy of the posthumous publication, and the humor and zany embodiment of New Orleans’s otherworldliness, Dunces also demonstrates the everyman aversion to labor and toil—that is, aside from the perks and moments of self-discovery. Flatulent, obese Ignatius Reilly finds himself at a turning point while strolling the French Quarter slinging hot dogs—more going down the hatch than to customers. In fact, everyone here seems to be in a job for a reason other than making money, from the Holiday Ham-aspiring Miss Trixie to the police-dodging Burma Jones. Even Ignatius wants little more than to keep an overbearing mother at bay. Throughout, Toole captures the lonely ridiculousness of pounding the pavement, and maintains a sharp eye for the absurdity of the people, places, hungers, and tasks that make up a working day.
American Pastoral
Seymour Levov, aka “The Swede,” is Roth’s 1960s Gatsby, displaced by the social upheaval of the day. Painstakingly detailed about the Newark-area glove-manufacturing legacy that Seymour is born into, the novel explores the tender devotion requisite of a lasting family business. Lyrical and funny at once, Roth’s story sweeps generations, offering a slice of Americana both specific and general that in the end proves that being righteous, steadfast, decent, and honest can’t always prevent society from tumbling the walls around everything you’ve built.
A Man in Full
In Wolfe’s epic, sprawling account of intersecting business, political, and social spheres in modern-day Atlanta, the focus varies but remains sharpest on disillusioned corporate magnate Charlie Croker. His plunge from grace, paralleled with the recently laid-off warehouse employee Conrad Hensley 3,000 miles away, grants empathy to the faceless, slaving masses and emphasizes the vast distance between the have-nots and the gates of their employers’ mansions. Wolfe maintains a keen eye throughout, trained sharpest on the business ego’s battle between self-preserving pride, and looming, devastating debt.
Then We Came to the End
The next generation of the business novel, Ferris’s hilarious critique of modern office life and the world of marketing acts almost as the written-word companion to the movie Office Space or the show The Office. Addictively funny, it also belongs in the same vein of rumbling satire as that employed by Toole. Ferris sheds light on all of our oft-overlooked interoffice mannerisms, inanities, and silly drama. Throughout, the prose paints a portrait that, while obviously entertaining, is also sharply revealing about that forty-hour-a-week alternative universe known as “work.”
Written by Todd Lazarski with Rebecca Schlei