The Franchiser

By: Stanley Elkin

Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno

The comic story of a man’s obsessive quest to build a fast food empire across America.

For the better part of the 1970's, entrepreneur Ben Flesh could expand his business kingdom with the snap of his fingers. His fast food restaurants and electronics stores were all a part of his rapidly growing domain, remaking America one enterprise at a time. But when a series of personal and professional catastrophes strike unexpectedly, Ben finds himself on the verge of losing it all.

Hailed as one of Stanley Elkin’s greatest works, The Franchiser is a biting satire of American consumerism and the story of one man’s all-consuming determination to create his lasting legacy, one business at a time.

©1976 Stanley Elkin (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Interesting book but the narration...

I suppose this is a matter of subjectivity but I thought the narrator's tone was all wrong for this author's particular voice. Maybe Elkin's writing style is hard to capture but Salerno uses this weird stop-start style of reading for the prose sections. The voice he uses for the main character Ben Flesh is just odd in the sense that it doesn't capture the character nor does it sound like any recognizable human would speak. The female voices are shrill and off-putting. Would recommend reading rather than listening to this one.