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THE ABSENCE OF A CELLO by Ira Wallach

THE ABSENCE OF A CELLO

By

Pub Date: June 23rd, 1960
Publisher: Little, Brown

Funnier than Muscle Beach (1959), this has its fair game preserve in big business and the assorted potshots are often direct hits at the corporation man and the corporate image he must project. Andrew Pilgrim, a prominent thermonuclear physicist, who had retired from teaching to launch an independent- soon insolvent- laboratory, is now thinking of a job in industry, in particular the Baldwin-Nelson company which has a crash program in refrigeration. In the days which pass here, Andrew, who is certainly not ""country club material"", and his wife, Celia, a philologist (the ""sin"" of scholarship) must be approved by company psychologist Otis Clifton who has all kinds of standards to apply (Temperament Rating; Extroversion Scale; etc.). Only their daughter, Joanna, and her romance with the dreadfully uneventful Perry seems at all possible. Otis soon realizes that Andrew is not their man- while his sister, Marian, is something else again-and there's a seduction, along with other assorted incidents, before Andrew is ready to settle for M.I.T.--An offhand and sometimes spritely spoof of organization life and company manners- this is still not other- directed, except as light entertainment.