Berthcut & Sons

Berthcut & Sons is a small Philadelphia retail/mail order business, purveyor of religious goods to a dwindling clientele of clergymen, seminarians, and migrant church ladies. The novel follows the rise to power of a phlegmatic apprentice salesman, Dexter, and the corresponding decline of his Type-A superior, Gerard. The careers of these men intersect with a number of significant developments: the hostile takeover of the business by a distant conglomerate, Cerulean Enterprises; Dexter's passive pursuit of a co-worker, Sylvia; and the ongoing mischief of three elusive antagonists: a Business Archangel, a salacious telephone voice, and Ben, the company's star salesman whom nobody's ever seen. The telephone voice pursues Gerard and causes his devotion to the business to waver (that is, he wastes company time on her). The Business Archangel ostensibly watches over the shop to prevent romances such as Gerard's from developing - and the archangel will step in himself to chase off the voice and get Gerard's mind back to business. Meanwhile, Dexter's convinced that Ben is the archangel, and that Gerard and the shop's manager, Doug Dugan, are either playing an elaborate trick on him or they have created Ben to cover up the loss of funds from Cerulean. The novel is divided into three parts. Part One, "The Trainee" follows a day at the office but over the span of Dexter's first five months. This section acquaints the reader with the religious goods business, the Berthcut mentality. Part Two, "The Salesman," runs from the fifth to tenth month of Dexter's employment, whence his responsibilities are intensified and, also, his "true vocation" dawns on him: the priesthood. At the same time, Gerard's business sense dulls and he becomes obsessed with getting together with the telephone Voice. Part Three, "The Manager," presents the company's gravest crisis, the future of the firm is in doubt.