Synopses & Reviews
A richly comic novel about the pure insanity of the television industry Bill Flanagan , author of the entertaining [and] merciless (Entertainment Weekly) satire of the music business A&R, unleashes his wicked wit on the television industry. When big-time New York TV executive Bobby Kahn is suddenly fired, he flees to the seaside town of New Bedlam, Rhode Island, to work for a tiny family-run cable business. The family in question, the Kings, happens to be one of the most hilariously dysfunctional broods in recent American fiction, with patriarch Dom presiding over his three quarreling children like King Lear without the vocabulary. Can Bobby save the business, his career, and his sanity? With its drawnfrom- real-life stories, observations, and insights into the madness of the television industry, New Bedlam is wonderfully sharp and hilarious summertime entertainment.
Review
A biting and hilarious satire of the pressure-filled TV business, with a bevy of rich characterseccentric, egotistical, and some practically insane.
BusinessWeek
A deliciously sly novel . . . A lively, occasionally acid, picaresque novel in which all the biters get bit and entertainment and metaphor have a way of bumping together.
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
About the Author
BILL FLANAGAN is executive vice president of MTV Networks and an on-air correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning. He has written for Esquire, Spy, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and many other publications.