Bloggin' 'bout Books: A Day Late and A Dollar Short

2025 Literary Escapes Challenge

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A Day Late and A Dollar Short

5:53 AM

You know how all month I've been whining about how behind on reviews I am? Well, I'm still behind. Very behind. So behind that, not only was I unable to review The Minefields by Steven C. Eisner, but I also forgot to post the summary and excerpt I promised to post. Gah!

It's a day late, but here you go, anyway:

Sam Spiegel has it all: A promising career at a top Madison Avenue advertising agency, an apartment in New York City, and a beautiful wife. He also has strong family ties, so when his ailing father, Harry, recruits him to turn the family’s sleepy Philadelphia ad shop into a regional powerhouse, Sam cannot refuse. Once entrenched in reviving Spiegel Communications, Sam begins a delicate dance of power with Harry. While Sam enjoys increasing success, Harry Spiegel remains mired in old traditions and weighed down by financial worries. Sam’s wife, Amy, also joins the agency, but she deeply resents Sam’s decision to leave New York. The two struggle in their marriage, which appears to center too much on business and not enough on intimacy. It isn’t long before emotions come to a head, putting everything Sam has worked for at risk. Despite these challenges, he’s able to build an impressive ad agency, winning many prestigious national accounts. Then it all changes. In the aftermath of 9/11, an international airline account—Spiegel’s largest—finds itself in a vulnerable position. Now caught in a stunning professional reversal as his life starts a downward spiral, Sam must find his way through the minefields around him—and survive. (Text is from the book's jacket cover)

And, now, for the excerpt: We three watched Harry W. Spiegel, calm and inexorably still. I sat by the curtain. Twenty minutes later his breathing stopped. Sunday Morning came to its end. The trumpet cleared and the kettledrum was left to solo out with a light patter, fading to quiet.

That is all.