New Bedlam

March 26, 2007
Flanagan's snarkily entertaining second novel (after A&R
) is a smorgasbord of colorful personalities and riotous events that would only be slightly less at-home on a reality TV show. Bobby Kahn—a hotshot young TV exec whose first big hit was the game show I'll Eat Anything!
—is fired after a scandal flares up when it's discovered that the producers rigged his latest reality show. Desperate to find another job before news of his firing spreads, Bobby accepts an offer to run King Cable, a family-owned and operated enterprise located in New Bedlam, R.I. Leaving the big city and having to downsize his ambition are bad enough, but managing and trying to subvert the egotistical whims of the King family heirs who run the network's three channels (one channel is dedicated to comic books) proves the greatest challenge. Though MTV senior vice president Flanagan is wryly philosophical about popular television's influence and base delights, he still manages to savagely skewer the medium. Granted, Flanagan's humor sometimes degenerates into mean-spiritedness (one character dies after his urine is accidentally administered intravenously), but his take on television's pathological weirdness is fun, fast-paced and unexpectedly endearing.