Description

(from inside cover)

ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MINERAL

Roger Appleseed burst through the door. "Where's the P.A.?"

It wasn't the first incomprehensible question he'd put to Priscilla in the past two days. She picked up her notes to see if she could find a clue.

"Don't look it up," he snapped. "Just try to remember. Did you put in an order for a P.A. from LBC?"

It would be a whole lot easier if she knew what a P.A. was. "I asked them for a studio and staff," she said hopefully. "Oh, and a Houston Dolly."

"Blast the Dolly! Did you or didn't you tell them to get a P.A. here today?"

She looked a lot calmer than she felt. She didn't eve know what she was looking for. Nervously she skimmed through four typewritten pages of notes and finally shook her head.

"I must have been out of my mind to hire you!" His hands tore through his hair, leaving most of it perpendicular. "So, get me a P.A.," he snarled, and stormed back to the Conference Room."

Notes

Priscilla, from tiny Coppermine, Oklahoma, on her first interview in New York City, ends up being hired, not as an entry-level studio typist, but as the personal secretary of Mr. Roger Appleseed, the brilliant, mercurial mind behind Appleseed Productions. This one is pure career porn with a tiny bit of true love tacked on to, literally, the last page. I didn't use the back of the book in the description because it's a reproduction of that last page -- about as deceptive as these things get. All the personal life material preceding had been her mooning over an uninspiring high-school sweetheart. Like most of the "learning a job" fiction from this time, sexism abounds, but, like a lot of it, you actually learn interesting stuff (here, the rise of the television industry and how shows were filmed and sold). And that's really the point.

Tags

1960s, American, United States, Northeast, calm/tranquil, career porn/job training, cheerful, efficient, f/m, female, fish out of water, hair, blond(e), principled, producer/director, romance, secretary, single, tall, temperamental, third-person, young

Flags

sexual harrassment