Bøger af Robert Castle

con-Glom-er-a-tion continues the story of Berthcut & Sons, a small religious good store in Philadelphia. One difference is that the novel is written in the form of a play. The play format allows all three settings of the novel to appear simultaneously. We left the religious goods store with the inexperience Dexter as manager, who has the idea of phasing out the religious merchandise and changing the shop into a sporting goods store. Dalmy Brothers, which oversees Berthcut's business, is aware of strange things happening and wants to put Berthcut out its misery. Dalmy's parent corporation, Cerulean Enterprises, has taken a special interest in Berthcut's operation and survival. Dalmy must, like Berthcut, resort to underhanded methods to achieve its ends. The novel is different in that its main characters are really the businesses, with the characters in those respective businesses manifesting the basic characteristics.

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.

American History in a Flash has some pretense to educating people to History. Not literal history. But to the prevailing themes of American History. By incorporating several Classroom scenes in the play, I want the connection between events and our learning about these events to coalesce. Part of that learning includes seeing (if it is produced) and/or reading this version of our past. I would hope the lasting effect won't be your worrying about my choices of events to dramatize and satirize. There were many I dropped from the cycle so that they could be shown in one evening.