The Sound of One Horse Dancing

Book excerpt: Twenty-seven-year-old Tim Halladay is a rising star in the three-martini lunch world of Madison Avenue in the early 1970s. In only five years, Tim has become a vice-president at the first ad agency he interviewed with, in charge of some of the most prestigious accounts listed in Advertising Age. But a week before Thanksgiving, his life takes a serious hit. After a hard-drinking, sex-filled night, Tim, the golden boy, arrives late to work. He suddenly finds himself fired without explanation. With three hundred dollars in his savings account, Tim wonders how hell even pay the rent. As Tim comes to terms with his unemployment, he reminisces about his life and the circumstances that have brought him to this crucial crossroads. Everything in his lifehis emotionally unstable upbringing, his service in the army during the troubled years of the Vietnam War, his affair with a high school girlfriend, his experiences at William and Mary during the JFK and LBJ years, his relocation to Manhattan in the 1970s, his first job in the world of advertising, and his adventures as a closeted gay man in the Stonewall Era Greenwich Villagecontributed to both the downfall and redemption of Tim Halladay.