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'Truth in Advertising' has a cinematic sense of motion

Fin Dolan aspires to something meaningful, but he can't put his finger on what it might be. He is chronically unattached, generally the smartest person in the room, and employed by a New York media company that offers endless opportunities for mockery. This is by now a familiar setup for a novel, a subgenre launched in 1984 by Jay McInerney's "Bright Lights, Big City."

The protagonist of John Kenney's debut novel, "Truth in Advertising," works not at a magazine but as a copywriter for a New York advertising agency. As the novel opens, Fin is on the set of a diaper commercial that stars Gwyneth Paltrow. He is doing what he can to keep everything from going wrong, and he is failing at it humorously. The most useful weapon in his arsenal is the well-timed droll remark. The comedic set piece boils down this message: Creatives in ad agencies are forced to suffer not only fools but full-on morons; and, while we're at it, truth in advertising is an oxymoron.

The tale that ensues is a pleasant enough entertainment that will in no way change the way you look at the world.


"A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral," according to Milan Kundera. But you know what? Kundera can really be a grump. If given a choice, it would be far more fun to have dinner with Kenney, a naturally comic author (he has contributed to the Shouts & Murmurs section of The New Yorker magazine since 1999) who has created a likeable narrator in Fin Dolan.

Fin's humor springs from a deep well of family-induced anguish, and soon enough comedy and tragedy are braided throughout the narrative. Fin has constructed some effective defense strategies. His life often unfolds before him as if it were a TV spot being filmed or as an imagined interview with Terry Gross or Oprah Winfrey. They interrogate him about his professional successes and personal shortcomings, with special emphasis on his famous inability to forge close relationships.

TERRY: This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. If you're just joining us, my guest is Finbar Dolan, copywriter, poet, hero. You mentioned climbing K2 without pants last year.

FIN: I wanted a challenge.

TERRY: What's sex like with Miss France?

FIN: Nice. Really pleasant. We had fun.

TERRY: How tall are you?

FIN: I'm six-five.

TERRY: Are most people happy?

FIN: That's a great question. I don't think so.


FIN: They lack fulfillment in either love or work.

TERRY: You have a lovely speaking voice. How much can you bench-press?

FIN: Ohh, I'm not sure, really. Two hundred and twenty-five pounds.

TERRY: You broke your former fiancée's heart.

FIN: Excuse me?

TERRY: You broke her heart. You embarrassed her and yourself. You called off a wedding with a month to go.

FIN: I . . .

TERRY: Your mother died.

FIN: Please don't . . .

TERRY: Your mother died when you were young. Tell us about that.

FIN: Please don't do that.

TERRY: Are you close with your father?

FIN: Why are you ...

TERRY: You have family. You have a sister and two brothers. Are you close? Do you keep in touch?

FIN: No. We, ahh ... no. We kind of lost touch and ...

TERRY: Your brother Eddie called you and asked that you call him back. Your brother. And yet you can't pick up the phone to call him. That seems sad and pathetic. You make no effort to keep in touch with these people, your siblings, your flesh and blood. Your family. You're a terrible person. What are your plans for Christmas?

It turns out that Fin has booked a trip to spend Christmas in Mexico. Alone. The closest thing he has to a best friend — his colleague, Phoebe, his peer when it comes to the effective deployment of words as self-protection — does what she can to get him to see how he is the architect of his own misery and loneliness. But she is powerless.

It is a phone call that sets the wheels in motion for Fin's transformation: His father, who abandoned the family when Fin was a child, is near death in a hospital bed. Fin's siblings are even less willing than he is to take care of the tasks that fall to sons and daughters in these situations, so he has no choice but to rise to the occasion.

Fin excels at turning a blind eye to the ways in which his childhood traumas continue to exert more than their fair share of influence on his adult life. It's not that he's incapable of insight, it's that his quick, clever wit masks a sluggishness in emotional intelligence. This is frustrating to his friends, who want to help him become unstuck.

Kenney can be at times frustrating to his readers, as well. It would be nice to be surprised occasionally.

Kenney's tale is more enjoyable than not, written with a cinematic sense of forward motion. Indeed, as with many contemporary novels, "Truth in Advertising" reads like a treatment for a screenplay.

It's tempting to imagine how a film version would be cast, but the characters would need to be more three-dimensional to suggest suitable actors. And in spite of the novel's pleasing aspects, the thought of spending $13.50 to see it in the theater seems, well, not very tempting.

Dean Olsher has been a broadcaster for more than 30 years. He is author of the book "From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords."

"Truth in Advertising"

By John Kenney, Touchstone, 320 pages, $24.99

Copyright © 2014, Orlando Sentinel
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