The Business Novel

We have made some progress in the business novel. But whether business as business is enough to inspire truly great fiction has yet to be demonstrated.

Cameron Hawley, who broke away from the Cowperwood-Babbitt stereotype in Executive Suite and Cash McCall, continues to steer clear of easy social satire in his latest novel about business, The Lincoln Lords (Little, Brown, $5.00). Mr. Hawley knows that businessmen live by decision, pitting their judgments day in and day out against the fates in a never- ending struggle to outwit the law of diminishing returns. He respects his businessmen as older novelists did not. He knows that the novelist can extract high drama by catching the businessman at the moment of decision. And he does not fudge up his prose to make points about sociological fashion that were old hat even when Thorstein Veblen was still alive.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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We have made some progress in the business novel. But whether business as business is enough to inspire truly great fiction has yet to be demonstrated.

Cameron Hawley, who broke away from the Cowperwood-Babbitt stereotype in Executive Suite and Cash McCall, continues to steer clear of easy social satire in his latest novel about business, The Lincoln Lords (Little, Brown, $5.00). Mr. Hawley knows that businessmen live by decision, pitting their judgments day in and day out against the fates in a never- ending struggle to outwit the law of diminishing returns. He respects his businessmen as older novelists did not. He knows that the novelist can extract high drama by catching the businessman at the moment of decision. And he does not fudge up his prose to make points about sociological fashion that were old hat even when Thorstein Veblen was still alive.