The Learners

Chip Kidd's latest novel, a sequel to his previous work, THE CHEESE MONKEYS, is an inventively written story of a graphic designer in the early sixties. Narrator Bronson Pinchot, known for the TV show "Perfect Strangers," offers a fresh perspective and a perfectly played performance that captures the essence of Kidd's work. Pinchot assumes the personality of Happy, the story's protagonist, with such vigor that he seems the only possible choice to narrate the novel. His speech is clear and firm; his straightforward voice is as credible as it is relatable. A witty story told by an even wittier narrator is a perfect combination. L.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

December 24, 2007
A sequel to book designer Kidd’s first novel, The Cheese Monkeys
, this beautifully composed paean to pre-computer graphic design pitches recent graduate Happy (his nickname), now 21, into the mercantile halls of down-at-the-heels New Haven ad agency Spears, Rakoff and Ware. Kidd paints the agency with all the customary conventions of a mid-century office culture farce: lacquered secretaries, lunchtime scotches and broken-down businessmen. Happy wiles away his time in blissful drudgery until he fields a call for designing a tiny ad for a seemingly innocuous psychological study. The study is being run by (real-life psychologist) Stanley Milgram, and Happy is unable to resist volunteering; little surprise for readers that Happy finds himself a participant in Milgram’s notorious Obedience to Authority
experiment, playing the role of “The Teacher” who is ordered to shock “The Learner” with near-lethal doses of electricity. Though character development is less the point than jokes about behaviorism and old school office culture’s last gasps, the experiment teaches Happy more than he ever hoped to know. The jokes are sometimes dippy, and some of the typographical pyrotechnics are on the twee side. But Kidd’s ebullience and generosity in unpacking the art and practice of graphic design carry the novel.