Nobody's Fool
by
Holt , $3.00.
Yet another exposé of hucksterism, which as a subject for fiction is suffering from a severe case of overexposure. Jefferson Clarke, wizard of public relations, conceives the notion of piecing together, by research, a composite portrait of the “Common Man.” He goes out and finds a living specimen in a small Missouri town; then sets about exploiting him, principally to the advantage of a six figure client— a steel tycoon whose wartime delinquencies are due for Senate investigation.
Like its predecessors, the novel is slick, machine-made fiction. There are the usual glib characterizations — the powermad huckster with his portentous idiosyncrasies (bisecting cigarettes and changing clothes for every big-time client); the onetime artist turned cynic and lush; the smooth, shiny career gal with the bruised psyche. There are the standard devices pour épater E bourgeois — glamorous interiors and mammoth expense accounts; glimpses of corruption in high places; immoderate consumption of the best liquors, periodically interrupted by sex. There’s the usual smart-alecky patter (”I was ready for some kind of permanency in bed”) and the usual lyrical love motif, awkwardly interjected. Meanwhile the author rattles off reams of catchpenny cynicism, though what he’s really plugging for, of course, is decency, integrity, and all that. Nobody’s Fool has bounce of a sort — a rather tawdry sort.