The Good Life Author:Douglass Wallop Albert Miller was a victim of the affluent society; for him the American dream had become a permanent nightmare. Until one day, in the glazed atmosphere of the cocktail hour, he conceived a plan as ingeniously simple as a tax loophole He and his wife should unload their suburban fiefdom, pocket the profits and hire out. As a live-in couple they ... more »would savor all the delights of the capitalist system with none of its grinding responsibility.
The plan progressed with lightning speed. From hundreds of drooling replies to his ad, Albert selected a handsome waterfront estate. There they commaned handsome wages and pool privileges in return for minimal duties. But even this earthly paradaise had its canker. The master, a sociological throwback, seemed unble to curb his class instincts. This sorely tried Albert's sense of fair play, until e discovered a hidden weapon; his employer's failure to reap the joys of retirement promised the free-enterprise system.
Shrewdly recalling his own managerial skills, Albert found decoros but diabolical means of wreaking his revenge. If the master suffered public humiliation, barely missing a watery grave in the process, who could possibly suspect the motives of a loyal and devoted servant? Their oblique conflict is finally resolved but not before the talented domestic is snared in a web of his own spinning, a sadder but no wiser man. This is sardonic rib-tickling humore at its best, a comic fable for our time.« less