Truth in Advertising: A Novel

Summary

Awickedly funny, honest, and poignant debut novel about the absurdity of corporate life, thecomplications of love, and the meaning of family.

Finbar Dolan is lostand lonely. Except he doesn’t know it. Despite escaping his blue-collar Bostonupbringing to carve out a mildly successful career at a Madison Avenue adagency, he’s a bit of a mess—and closing in on forty. He’s recently called offa wedding. Now, a few days before Christmas, he’s forced to cancel along-postponed vacation in order to write, produce, and edit a Superbowlcommercial for his diaper account in record time.

Fortunately,it gets worse. He learns that his long estranged and once abusive father hasfallen ill—and that neither of his brothers or his sister intend to visit.It’s a wake-up call for Fin to re-evaluate the choices he’s made, admit thathe’s falling for his coworker Phoebe, question the importance of diapers inhis life, and finally tell the truth about his life and his past.

First-timenovelist John Kenney, a regular New Yorker contributor,mines his own advertising background to weave spot-on, compelling insiderdetail into a hilarious, insightful, at times sardonic, and ultimately movingdebut.