The riches-to-rags true story of an advertising executive who had it all, then lost it all-and was finally redeemed by his new job, and his twenty-eight-year-old boss, at Starbucks.
Michael Gates Gill's story of being pushed out of an "alpha male" job and forced to work in a service job is both entertaining and compelling. Gill's insecurities, class consciousness, and poor relationship with his self-absorbed father compounded his fall from high-flying marketing executive to retail grunt who found himself serving coffee to the kind of person he used to be. Most poignantly, his Starbucks job led to important life lessons through his experiences with African-Americans and others whom he says he looked down on in his previous career. With his pleasing elocution, sensitivity to nuances in dialogue, and obvious appreciation for the author's experiences, Dylan Baker carries the weight of this story without being heavy-handed with its morality lesson. T.W. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
