Product Description

An unforgettable first novel, an author to shout about, a campaign to ensure that everyone knows this is the funniest, sharpest read of the year. Consisting entirely of staff emails, e spends a fortnight in the company of Miller Shanks, an advertising agency that scales dizzying peaks of incompetence. Among the cast are a CEO with an MBA from the Joseph Stalin School of Management, a Creative Director who is a genius, if only in his own head, designers and copywriters driven by breasts, beer or Bach Flower Remedies, and secretaries who drip honey and spit blood. The novel is a tapestry of insincerity, backstabbing and bare-arsed bitchiness: that is to say, everyday office politics. Oh yes, and there is some work to be done too -- the quest for advertising's Eldorado, the Coca-Cola account. e is sleazy, scurrilous and scabrously funny. It also contains a first-class joke about the Pope and sound advice on the maintenance of industrial carpet tiles.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12479 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The idea of the first e-mail novel could have been a disaster but instead is a minor comic triumph thanks to Matt Beaumont's E. The novel of letters goes back to Richardson, of course, but things have moved on from Regency rape to the lethal office politics of an advertising agency. The beleaguered protagonists may appear to be concerned with pitching for the Coca-Cola account but their real problem is watching their backs: the knives are out and everyone from head honcho David Crutton downwards is well aware that their careers are on the line. Another part of Beaumont's lineage in this unputdownable novel is the This Life school of detailed interpersonal observation: no one character is allowed to assume centre stage; people screw, argue and discuss professional responsibility while the reader slowly makes his mind up about them from the information conveyed in the increasingly frantic e-mails.

Matt Beaumont, though, is primarily a sharp and witty observer of the social scene, with caustic humour that leaps out of his characters' electronic missives. And we're pitched headlong into the situation: it's impossible not to find ourselves riveted by Rachel, James, Harriet, Daniel and all the rest of Beaumont's at-the-edge characters as they strive to achieve a common goal and sink deeper and deeper in the waste matter. But did anybody ever send an e-mail like this one from Lorraine, a woman out to get her own way?:

Two days in London and I'm in advertising. I went to a temp agency last week and they got me into this place called Miller Shanks. They did those shite ads for Kimbelle--you know, the Artist Formerly Known as Ginger Spice bungee jumping, looking like someone shoved a high voltage cable up her arse. I'm working for the CEO (posh for managing director). One of the lads thinks he's on for a shag but he looks too much like Bart Simpson (overbite, spiky hair and slightly jaundiced). Mind you, after a few Stellas he starts looking like Brad Pitt, so who knows?

Review
Praise for e 'A brilliantly plotted comic novel about life in an advertising agency, narrated entirely through office emails. It gives me more sense that literature is alive and kicking than anything else I've read in these millennial 12 months.' Humphrey Carpenter, Sunday Times Review of the Year 'Lively, viciously funny and about as switched on as a novel can be' Mirror 'Hilarious' Cosmopolitan 'Depicts the Machiavellian scheming and summary sackings of the ad world in withering detail and with no shortage of dead-eye wit' The Times 'Groundbreaking!an internet-enabled Clarissa for the 21st century' Evening Standard 'Hysterical, sensationally funny' Arena 'Read it, wipe away your tears, then read it again' Company 'Fab debut!lock eyes with Matt Beaumont. Your career may depend on it' Kirkus 'A genuinely enjoyable page-turner' The Times 'e is the most enjoyable, addictive read I've had since Bridget Jones' Lisa Jewell 'Here's a book that recognises our true priorities: blame-shifting, arse-covering, personal enhancement, shagging -- and, oh yes, the odd advert. Matt compresses into a few weeks a dazzling cascade of events, most of which have either happened at one agency or another or are otherwise completely believable. A finer observer of agency politics you'll never meet.' Andrew Cracknell, Campaign

About the Author
Matt Beaumont is a copywriter and has been fired by some of London's leading ad agencies. He lives in North London with his wife and two children.

Customer Reviews

This will make you laugh out loud
This is by far the funniest book I have ever read. The basic premise is simple: an advertising company based in London are going all-out to win the Coke Cola contract..... only the novel is written entirely in the e-mails that fly around between staff and others.

The best bit? If you work in an office and use email reguarly, you'll recognise most of the characters. My office employs at least five of the main characters - the names are different, but style (or lack thereof!) remains. You know, the chap who just can't resist dropping in his title; the PA who 'only works for such-and-such' and couldn't possibly do anything for you; the geek who has anything for sale.

This is sharp stuff and a very cutting commentary of life in your average office, circa Y2K. I have never, ever laughed aloud when reading a book before - I did with this one. I can't recommend it highly enough.

And now there's a sequel.... buying it now!

One for lovers of 'The Office'
I couldn't put it down until I'd finished it, which means I've been really antisocial for the last 24 hours.
What a brilliant book!
The whole novel is written in the form of emails, which could have been a total disaster if the characters hadn't been so recognisable.
Don't we all know people who talk about 'putting our ducks in a row' or 'thinking outside the box.'
Perhaps my favourite though is Simon Horne and his terrible Franglais....'Up the creek called Merde. Sans paddle.'

Fantastic and highly recommended.

electronic maelstrom
This is a story of a period of time in an advertising firm in London, through documenting the e-mails sent around the office during that time.

To start with this is a little difficult to get the hang of; as it isn't readily apparent until you get the swing of it who is saying what to whom. Then once you establish the hierarchy of the firm it settles into a nice rhythm and is pretty funny. I feel that you have to slightly suspend reality for some passages; as the viability of someone putting their most personal thoughts down on an e-mail when they actually only have to walk 20 feet to where they work to tell them, is slightly unusual. But then we would not be able to keep up with the plot if they were to do that, and also, I would probably believe anything of people who work in advertising.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a light read, or an insight into the latest method of time wasting in the workplace. My only criticism is that it gets a little repetitive by the end, and you find yourself longing for a "normal" passage of writing.