Standard of Conduct and Three Autobiographical Sketches: A Polemical Comedy in Four Parts

Frank Hazard relentlessly disregards political correctness in Standard of Conduct, a trenchant satire and hilarious comedy that depicts a day in the life of what the author calls an Ivy League dunce. The brisk narrative follows an Ivy League dunce and businessman named Walsh as he proceeds from his New York City apartment in the morning to his office downtown in the financial district to a meeting hours later with another businessman for lunch at a private club and, ultimately, to a prestigious clothing store, where he intends to buy an expensive red silk robe that raffishly allures him. There are shrewd, perceptive vignettes comprising an irresistible panoply of unique characters that include Walsh and his intellectually fastidious secretary, a former ballerina, and her fiancé, a forlorn artist whose career has perilously stalled; a young woman who toils in a real estate office as she indefatigably dreams of becoming a novelist; supercilious diplomats and diffident poets, indignant critics and deceitful lawyers; plutocrats and pedagogues and publishers, and two vainglorious groups called SOMPs and VOBs-delineated with acute, wry humor and keenly incisive wit. Deftly enhanced by vigorous, eloquent, and inventive language as lyrical as music, Standard of Conduct is a hilarious literary satire and superior entertainment as topical as it is timeless.