THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 7, 1994 TAG: 9408040627
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
BEN & JERRY'S
The Inside Scoop
FRED ``CHICO'' LAGER
Crown. 242 pp. $22.50.
BEN & JERRY'S: The Inside Scoop gives a step-by-step account of how two ``funky'' guys, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, turned a $5 investment into a $150 million business.
As Fred ``Chico'' Lager, B&J's former president and CEO, tells it, Ben and Jerry began making superpremium (15 percent butterfat content) ice cream in 1978 in a renovated '40s-era gas station in Burlington, Vt., after taking a correspondence course in ice cream-making from Penn State University. (They split the $5 tuition.) With the purchase of a secondhand 4 1/2-gallon White Mountain rock-salt-and-ice freezer that they transported to Vermont from Boston in Ben's van, these ``two real guys'' with ``no business experience'' set off on a modern-day odyssey.
What Ben and Jerry lacked in business acumen, they made up for in flamboyance and imagination, as they used theme festivals, promotional events and campaign slogans to launch their enterprise. They opened their Vermont store by giving out free ice cream cones, and continued this ``buy-one, get-one-free'' promotion for years.
One of the most effective slogans used by Ben & Jerry's was ``What's the Doughboy Afraid Of?'' Finding their company squeezed by Haagen-Dazs, a competing superpremium ice cream originally made in the Bronx, the two ex-hippies decided to fight the Fortune 500, taking on Haagen-Dazs' parent company, Pillsbury, and its Doughboy symbol. Writes Lager: ``The combination of first class legal muscle with guerrilla marketing was extremely effective and it threw Pillsbury for a loop.''
MBAs, accountants, financial officers and those starting a new business or involved in an ongoing one will love this book. Those of us who are not financially minded but who love ice cream would benefit from a lighter, more humorous touch than the one Lager applies. It would have enlivened his weighty financial revelations. Still, Lager truly has the inside scoop.
- FERN E. MACALLISTER
WALKING SHADOW
ROBERT B. PARKER
G.P. Putnam's Sons. 270 pp. $19.95.
THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR of The Port City Theatre Co. thinks he's being stalked. As a favor to his lady love, Susan, Spenser agrees to investigate. But the situation quickly escalates when, during a performance, one of the company's leading actors is murdered. Now the game has a different name, and Spenser, along with cohort Hawk and former mob gunman Vinnie Morris, is on the case.
If Robert B. Parker has shown anything in his 20-some book Spenser, P.I., series, it is inconsistency. Just compare 1992's superb Double Deuce with last year's disappointing Paper Doll. It's not surprising that Walking Shadow is neither superb nor bad, but in between.
Typically, when a Spenser novel falls short, it is because of a lack of the snappy dialogue that has become a Parker trademark. In Walking Shadow, the dialogue is there, but the magic that makes it special isn't. Also missing is the magic between Spenser and Susan. They share scenes aplenty, but that certain quality that makes theirs a relationship to envy is missing.
Walking Shadow isn't a total loss. The plot, though nothing special, is better than Parker's last effort. And there's also Vinnie Morris. A working-class gunman with world-class talents, Vinnie is a most welcome addition, providing an earthy contrast to tough-guy sophisticates Spenser and Hawk.
Walking Shadow could have been great Spenser. Unfortunately, the one missing ingredient - the magic - is the most important, and without it, ``good'' is the best this one can be.
- GREGORY N. KROLCZYK
THE FAMILY HEART
ROBB FORMAN DEW
Addison-Wesley. 229 pp. $22.
MOST MINORITY CHILDREN grow up knowing that while they may be discriminated against out in the world, at home they have people who understand. It's not the same for young gays and lesbians, whose parents are often bewildered and sometimes cruel when their children come out.
In her memoir, The Family Heart, novelist Robb Forman Dew tells of her reactions to her oldest son's coming out. It is much tamer than many such stories, as seemingly perfect children interact with educated, compassionate parents. Dew's growth from confusion about homosexuality to advocacy for her son's rights is inspiring.
But she pads her tale with flashbacks to her own youth and layers of New England nature - when she's not looking out the window, she's off shopping. Thus what could have been a promising magazine piece is instead a ponderous book.
- MARK MOBLEY by CNB