Selling Ben Cheever: Back to Square One in a Service Economy

Ben Cheever's hilarious and profound odyssey through the want-ad world.

In 1995, America was in the throes of downsizing-fever. Many thousands then, as now, were losing their jobs to the corporate demand of more money for the top, by tightening the belt below. Unable to sell his latest novel, Ben Cheever started to think about what employment opportunities were out there. Mustering his courage, he skimmed the want-ads, made some phone calls, went to interviews, and ended up as everything from a security guard to a computer salesman.

Rejected by Brooks Brothers, accepted as a sandwich maker, successful as a car salesman, Cheever brilliantly chronicles life on the other side of the counter. As we see him confront his own demons about what a particular job means to him, we are compelled to consider how our egos are affected by not only what we do, but how we do it. It is through Ben's experiences that we begin to think about our approach to our own jobs and to confront our fears about what we would do if we didn't have them.

Benjamin Hale Cheever has been a reporter for daily newspapers and an editor at Reader's Digest. He is the author of the acclaimed novels The Plagiarist, The Partisan, and Famous After Death, and the editor of The Letters of John Cheever. He has taught at Bennington College and The New School for Social Research.