Identities

Product Description Thomas Stazyk’s irreverent debut, Identities, objectively explores how individuals’ constructed identities determine their worldview and examines the contemporary issues of materialism, corporate greed, and personal identity with startling clarity. Dave Locke just got the call all executives in corporate America dread: the company is going in a different direction, thanks for all of your hard work, but we don’t need you any longer. His sense of self and his place in the world shattered, Dave’s experience and connections quickly land him a role as a senior partner in a management-consulting firm. As he settles into his new job, Dave takes a hard look at how narrowly he has defined himself and his life so that the mere loss of a job could be so personally devastating. He is disturbed by the greed, selfishness, and shallowness of some of his fellow partners, clients, and even his own son, Jim, a Wall Street executive. At the same time, thanks to his wife Jill, who is doing meaningful volunteer work with the less privileged, and his younger, rebellious and altruistic son, Alex, he learns to see the world differently. Dave evolves a new perspective on life and career, and he decides to change corporate culture and the capitalist system from the inside. A lot of people don’t like change, however, and Dave finds that he has to pick his battles carefully. His mission sets him on an entertaining collision course with entrenched bureaucracies and office politicians as well as his ambitious son. It turns out to be a frustrating and risky business. Stazyk’s scathing satire takes aim at materialism and greed with intelligence and humanism, challenging our definitions of success with a fine-tuned understanding of collective behavior. As inspiring as it is insightful, Identities is a thought-provoking commentary that redefines the modern landscape and encourages us to change our world for the better. From Kirkus Reviews A management consultant jousts with the loonier aspects of American capitalism in Stazyk’s canny debut satire of the corporate world. After Dave Locke is booted from the presidency of a technology corporation following a merger, he’s relieved to land a partnership at tony Quantum Consulting. Unfortunately, this avowed bastion of best business practices turns out to be filled with nincompoops. The partners are obsessed with status and extreme-sports exploits; the management committee signs off on Dave’s plans if he sprinkles them with the buzz phrase “world-class”; and clients are given the hard sell on outsourcing and layoffs, no matter what the long-term costs. (Alas, their clients are only too happy to pillage their own firms; one CEO wants to relocate his conglomerate to Panama for tax purposes.) As a deep recession takes hold, Dave picks his way through a minefield of office politics and callous management theories. Meanwhile, his sons—Alex, a would-be actor who doesn’t want to be defined by his career, and Jim, a workaholic investment banker—debate the spiritual pitfalls of capitalism. Stazyk’s cutting, funny tale furnishes plenty of Dilbert-esque office gags and colorful characters, including an Indian swami who turns his spiritual aura into a publicly traded corporation. The novel’s greatest creation may be Jim’s girlfriend, Jennifer, a frenzied Wall Streeter whose fussbudget consumerism reflects her hollow soul. Stazyk has written a novel that treats business as an important and absorbing subject; the author knows the terrain well and his naturalistic prose and dialogue has a nuanced subtlety that rings true. When Dave deploys his infighting skills against boardroom boobs and tyrants, his conviction that business can be both profitable and ethical starts to seem like a believable bottom line. An entertaining, covertly insightful satire. About the Author Thomas E Stazyk was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied business and accounting at the University of Dayton, Ohio, and the