cover image The Dollar Bill Knows No Sex

The Dollar Bill Knows No Sex

Karin Abarbanel, Wendy Rue. McGraw-Hill Companies, $21.95 (213pp) ISBN 978-0-07-057787-9

At age 18, Rue launched a highly profitable string of Wendy Teenscene clothing boutiques in Los Angeles. Later, she started an executive search firm and, in 1972, became founder and president of the National Association for Female Executives, which aims to convince big corporations to market credit cards, bank loans, insurance and other financial products and services to women. In this shoot-from-the-hip business autobiography written with Abarbanel (How to Succeed on Your Own) Rue, known for her sassy wit and unconventional business attire (she invariably wears California white), candidly charts her checkered path to entrepreneurial success, strewn with frustration, unemployment, near-bankruptcy, three divorces and years as a hardworking mother of two young sons. Though much of the advice offered here has a familiar ring (stay true to yourself, build a support system), there's also a lot of contrarian admonition (beware of market research, never chase the competition). Rue's never-say-die spirit informs an inspirational survivor's manual for women seeking financial and emotional independence. (Mar.)