Hype

Nickles, coauthor of Girls in High Places , turns in a snappy, lunatic send-up of life at a major Chicago ad agency, where ace creative director Cam McKenna and her sidekick Juice are wooing a big-money account. Cam wonders at times if it's worth the effort (``Would Proust have written a Hyundai commercial?''), but she's bursting with sales pitches for everything from feminine hygiene products to mashed potatoes; besides, her social life is disastrous. Her faithless ex-husband drops by for the occasional tryst and she entangles herself with a teen-throb rock 'n' roller while shooting a hot video. Yet Cam feels torn between love and work when romance blooms with a professional chef named Jamie, a cloying '80s Renaissance man who can jam with a band, play bouncer in a bar, sweet-talk kids and bums, and cook a spectacular rack of lamb. Hype trades sizzle for saccharine midway through this roistering read, but when Nickles is funny, she really pulls out all the stops. Major ad/promo. (Sept.)