Executive suite

Cameron Hawley’s novel, Executive Suite, a story of ambition and workplace politics opens in New York with the unexpected sudden death of 56 year old Avery Bullard. Bullard, who’s in New York to eliminate a man as a prospective executive vice president for the Tredwell Furntiure Corporation, suffers a cerebral hemorrhage and dies in the street as he is about to enter a cab. The man who was interviewed for the job witnesses the death and immediately dumps his stock in the Tredwell Corporation, and at the same time a woman passer by picks up and steals Bullard’s wallet. Bullard’s last act was to wire his secretary and order an emergency meeting of his five vice presidents so while the police in New York try to discover the identify of the dead man, back in Millburgh, Pennsylvania, at the Tredway Tower, the corporation’s company headquarters, the five vice presidents are supposed to dump their plans and prepare to gather together. Everyone involved knows the meeting is to announce the new executive vice president, so no one can refuse. The last Executive VP died of a heart attack a few months before and the seat has been naggingly vacant ever since. The question on everyone’s mind is : who will Avery Bullard select? While the five men mull over their positions, we readers know that Bullard is dead and the bigger question is who will take over as the new president?

The story goes into the minds of each of these men as they contemplate who will be selected as executive vice president, little knowing that with Bullard’s death, the stakes have drastically changed. Through these different minds, author Cameron Hawley explores just what work means to each man. VP Jesse Grimm, for example, no longer feels any satisfaction from his job and he has plans to retire imminently. VP J. Walter Dudley has recently found new zest in life through a no-strings relationship with a furniture shop owner, and VP Alderson thinks he deserves the executive VP spot since he’s been there the longest. Of course, the great irony is while the 5 VPs scramble around in various power plays assuming that the stake is the Executive VP spot, with Bullard’s death, the stakes have suddenly become much greater.

Avery Bullard is, of course, absent after page one, but his presence dominates the lives of everyone who knew him. Originally a furniture salesman, he salvaged the Tredway Furniture Company from bankruptcy after the suicide of its founder and eventually merged seven other furniture companies which then formed the Tredway Corporation. He was a remarkable man who spent an energetic lifetime building his corporation while discovering and mentoring people. Even Tredway’s largest stockholder, Julia Tredway Prince owes a tremendous debt to Bullard’s willpower and generosity. A few minor characters also exist to show what a powerful personality Bullard had–there’s loyal secretary, Erica Martin–“always in the bufferland between Avery Bullard and his vice-presidents,” and even an elevator man who’s devoted to the company president. But while Bullard demanded total and complete loyalty from his employees, some people–usually the wives, resent Bullard and his domineering presence in their lives. Mrs Alderson, for example, dreads the idea that her husband may become executive VP as she feels that she has already ‘lost’ her husband to the company. They live in the old Bullard home, a house she hates, because, according to her husband, “Mr. Bullard thinks it’s what we should do.”

"But even the house, bad as it was, had not been the worst thing that Avery Bullard had done to her. Put in its simplest terms–and all of the years of loneliness had given Edith Alderson plenty of time to reduce everything to the simplest of terms–Avery Bullard had taken her husband away from her. He had turned her life into a meaningless sham of being married to a man whose first loyalty she could not claim."

This is very much a novel about American business, and in its depiction of ambition, back stabbing office politics, and the issue of balancing home life with career, the book is relevant today. The novel can be faulted for its depiction of the female characters, but this is inevitable since this is a book about men and their careers while the wives linger in the sidelines. At one point, Walling praises another woman, glowingly to his wife, saying that she ‘thinks like a man,’ while another wife remembers only those people who’ve come to dinner, and she can recall the menu served down to minute detail.

In this novel, Hawley asks some big questions: what do men ‘get’ from their careers, is it possible to balance work and home and still be successful, and what exactly brings job satisfaction? One character discusses compartmentalizing work and home and there’s the idea that one of the reasons the divorced Bullard was so admired was because he seemed to have achieved something with his life that other men envied. Ultimately, the novel argues that emotional choices in the workplace must be overridden by rational decisions; we don’t necessarily have to ‘like’ those we pick for the job.

I read some descriptions of this book as a page-turner. I found the book slow-going and it seems best read in big chunks rather than picking it up and putting it down as there are a lot of characters to keep track of here. One final thought–books written today about career and the workplace environment seem much more cynical. We see workers, anonymous and replaceable in a large corporate setting, doing anything but work. Thinking here of Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan.

The Tredway Tower: "Monument to a man". This is at the center of a suspenseful book about business. Yes, suspenseful as the novel opens with the sudden death of the President of the Tredway Corporation, Avery Bullard, due to a cerebral hemorrhage. It occurs in New York City where Bullard had been at a business meeting. The event leaves five corporate Vice-presidents, who make up most of the Board of Directors of the company, jockeying for the top position at the corporation. The story depicts the conflicts, the collaborations, and the jostling for power among these men while exploring the question: What type of person should be president of the company? The resolution of this question, in doubt until the final pages of the narrative, provides much of the suspense in this excellent novel.
Adding to the suspense is the unusual structure in which the author narrates the story literally minute by minute and hour by hour over the two days in which the events occur. Through brief glimpses into the lives of a few important characters, and in some cases their wives, the reader is provided context for the decision-making and corporate politics that are rapidly leading to the resolution of the fateful situation the death of the Corporate President has placed them.

Gradually the character of the main players in this business drama emerge through their actions both in the past (related through flashbacks) and in the moments of the two days that culminate in the choice of a successor to Avery Bullard. Loren Shaw, the comptroller, comes to the fore through his knowledge of the numbers behind the corporation and his ability to manipulate them; however, his ability to manipulate his peers seems to falter. The most senior of the Vice-presidents, Frederick Alderson lacks the will to take on the top job himself, but strives to manipulate others into the position. Most interesting of all the Vice-presidents is MacDonald (Don) Walling. His mind is described by his wife:
"Don's mind worked in such a different way from her own that she could never reconstruct the pattern of his thinking. Actually, as she often told herself, Don did not think--at least not in the sense that she thought of thinking. He disliked the orderly setting down of fact against fact, and seemed to instinctively side-step any answer that was dictated by logic and reason. . . the end result was often a brilliant flash of pure creative imagination" (p 201)
Don's "truly creative mind" had served him well in his move up the ladder to Corporate Vice-president and he exhibited an individualist view that set him apart from his peers. Even though he was not the closest to the former President, his understanding of Avery Bullard's mind was another of his many assets. Whether he would choose to seek the Presidency or others would coalesce around his leadership is one of the important questions that contributed to the uniqueness of this novel. There are other important characters including an astute corporate secretary, an unlikely Italian-American elevator operator, and the granddaughter of the founder of the Company, Julia Tredway Prince. Ultimately she would play perhaps the most key role of all.

Cameron Hawley is impressive in his ability to develop characters through their actions which demonstrate, not just corporate "types", but individuals who have reasons, some good and others faulty or even bad, for their actions. They are people who are complex, like Don Walling and his wife who think very differently but appreciate each other. The result of this mix of character with the added speed and suspense of the novel's structure makes for both a great book about the nature of business and a great novel.

I have enjoyed the movie that is based on this novel for many years. When I found out that 'Cash McCall' was by the same author, I decided to go to the source. 'Cash McCall' is not as good a movie but still enjoyable. I liked this novel but I didn't love it. It's very similar to the movie but some characters were changed perhaps to match the casting. I had a hard time with the 1950s female stereotypes. There was a woman who had a Phd but spent all her time catering to her husband's every whim and worrying about whether she should use word A or word B when talking to him. Good grief. Don't bother reading this. Watch the movie instead.

Dated but Refreshing

It is hard to see the world through Cameron Hawley's eyes. It's been a long time. Yes, the gender stereotypes are present in full force. Yes, the images of executive suites and corporate ladder climbing are painfully dated. But underneath it all, Hawley manages to show us through a battle among possible replacements for a suddenly decreased company boss what distinguishes the great from the also-ran. And it's not what you think.

Not Bad - The Movie is More to the Point

Watch the movie. The speech at the end is special. A great business movie. The novel has too much misogynistic stuff for today's world. But interesting to see how things were in yesterday's business world.

This 1952 novel is about a large furniture corporation and the machinations of all the company Vice-Presidents to nab the company President job when that person suddenly dies. I was drawn to read this book recently because I have seen the movie on which it is based ("Executive Suite", released in 1954) on many occasions. The movie starred William Holden, Barbara Stanwyck, Dean Jagger, Fredric March, Louis Calhern, Nina Foch, Shelley Winters, and many others.

Having seen the movie so many times, I think it made me enjoy the book even more, since I pictured the specific actors while reading it. As with any book-to-movie transition, there are plot points in the book that aren't in the film (and vice versa) but basically they are close. At least four of the 7 votes of the Executive committee are needed to elect a new President, and at least 2 of those 7 men want the job very badly. The same character ultimately gets the job in this book as in the movie, but how it took place is quite different from the film. I liked the book very much indeed and I think a reader who finds that plot intriguing would also enjoy it even if he or she hasn't seen the film.

**#56 of 100 books pledged to read/review in 2015**

Apart from the breathtakingly yet true-to-the-time rampant sexism, this is another example of a novel that fares better on the screen than between the covers of a book.

I still find the movie so compelling that when I encounter it, I watch through to the end. Glad I read it, but won't be revisiting this novel.