All for Money

Bob Macallan, age 35, has built his magazine Elixir from the ground up. So when American Communications offers him $10 million for the business, he thinks he has hit the jackpot. There's only one catch: Bob has to stay on for a year and keep the magazine profitable; if he doesn't, he'll lose everything. Naturally, as soon as he makes this deal with the devil, all hell breaks loose. Although this blustering novel apparently aspires to be the I Can Get It for You Wholesale of the magazine trade, it's a surprisingly tame read, with a protagonist so haunted by his father's past failures and intimidated by the woman of his fantasies that he seems disagreeably meek. However, the details of big-city media life are exactly right: the power lunches, expense-account hookers and corporate end-arounds are all presented clearly and accurately, if without any real sense of conflict. Anyone interested in the business side of the magazine world will be intrigued by Kaplan's views--as the author of The Big Time: How Success Really Works and creative director of a New York City advertising agency, he obviously knows whereof he speaks. Literary Guild selection. (Apr.)