When Paul Lavallier makes a joke at a cocktail party in Hong Kong, he doesn't expect it to change his whole life. But he's been a little down on his luck. His wife has left him with nothing but a pile of bills he can't afford to pay. And every day he helps millionaire CEOs make more and more money for themselves while every year, there seems to be less and less for him. So when he's offered a chance to make big bucks by being a stand-in CEO, he jumps at the chance. All he has to do is go down with the ship and collect his big payoff. But he can't help himself: he starts trying to fix things. To his (and everyone else's) surprise, it turns out he's pretty good at it. But fixing things might kill the deal and powerful people can't let that happen. From Hong Kong to Dallas, from Albuquerque to Singapore and Geneva, Paul is on a quest to make things right. It's a classic fish out of water story and Paul's journey is hilarious, touching and timely.
A comic novel of outrageous fortune, The Downside of Up entertains with an unforgettable case study of bad management, with hints of Tom Wolfe, Christopher Buckley and Stanley Bing. Every leader in every company should read this book. When you finish laughing, you'll also be a better leader.
Praise for The Downside of Up
"The Downside of Up is classic Dunston. It unleashes the creativity of a novelist, the provocative insights of a thought leader who has coached many of the top executives in the world, and the compassion of a sensei who deeply cares about the human condition, for Dunston is all three. This riveting story is loaded with all the lessons of a Harvard case study, but delivered with the kind of humor that will entertain you throughout. The business literature is ripe with short fables, but here, Dunston has broken new ground-read it and laugh."
Kevin and Jackie Freiberg, NUTS! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success
"Surprising, inventive, The Downside of Up, the story of a wide-eyed innocent thrust into the world of high-stakes business had me laughing out loud."
Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Someone's Daughter, Necessary Roughness
"Alternately hilarious and heartwarming, The Downside of Up thrusts its hero into the inner workings of private equity firms, pulling back the veil on a hidden world of billion dollar deals and morally ambiguous corporate decisions. A perfect novel for the times we live in."
G.L. Breedon, The Wizard of Time, The Dark Shadow of Spring
"Writing about subjects that in the hands of a lesser writer would put them to sleep, Dain's prose commands attention. Whether he's writing about a "nanobite" or a corporate chieftan, Dain takes readers below the surface of things, allowing us to see what we otherwise wouldn't see, feel what we otherwise wouldn't feel, understand what we otherwise wouldn't understand."
George Getschow, Writer-in-residence and director, The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference
"If you could push a button and make yourself rich, you'd do it. But what if you knew the button would also make 11,000 families poor? Would you still push it? That's the question Dain Dunston asks in this page-turner of a comic novel. The Downside of Up deals with some of the toughest questions facing Americans today and proves you can do well in business by doing good."
Vince Poscente, The Ant and the Elephant, The Age of Speed
About the Author: Dain Dunston spent 25 years as a communication strategist, speech writer and creative director for top executives in Fortune 500 companies, before which he served variously as a marketing executive, a real estate sales person, a restaurateur, a yogi and a bodyguard for a short list of notable executives and celebrities, including, for one unforgettable evening, Jerry Garcia. Dain is the co-author, with Drs. Kevin and Jackie Freiberg, of Nanovation: How a Little Car Can Teach the World to Think Big and Act Bold, a case study of how global companies create disruptive innovation through radically low-cost products (Thomas Nelson, 2011). In addition to his corporate speech writing, he wrote one-man shows for Pat Oliphant, Dick Cavett, Patrick Stewart, Tommy Lee Jones and John Travolta. He studied writing with Horton Foote and Romulus Linney. His play, The Red Guide, received the Live Oak Prize for Best New American Play of 1996. Dain lives with his wife in the hills outside of Austin, Texas. The Downside of Up is his first novel. His second one is well on the way.
