THE GOLDEN KAZOO (246 pp.)John G. SchneiderRinehart ($3.50).
The simple thesis of this book is that tomorrow's President will not be elected by the people, nor by old-line machine bosses like The Last Hurrah's Frank Skeffington (see above), but by slick advertising boys on Madison Avenue. A candidate will be pretested and merchandised like "a can of beer, a squeeze tube of deodorant, a can of dog food."
This would-be satire, by an ex-adman turned novelist, is set in the political outer space of 1960. The book's hero-heel is Blade Reade, a middle-aging boy genius who tries to keep his ulcer quiet and...