Daddy Big Bucks
Daddy Big Buck’s is the story of the unlikely intersection of the lives of an executive and a professional shoe shine man. There premise seems to be a combination of “never judge a book by its cover—no matter how good or bad” and “all educated ain’t smart”. The story centers around a small company executive, Bert and a shoe-shine man, Hiawatha or “Buck’s” as he is called. Bert has seen this nearly mythological character around, who seems to know all the ins and outs of the company and its employees, including the chairman. It is later revealed that although Buck’s appears daily to offer shoe shines and hawk door-to-door cleaning products, he is more than he appears.
The author appears to be using this book to create a foil between the appearance of success and it’s reality, “book sense and common sense”. He primarily focuses on Bert and Buck’s, although secondary characters are introduced as one-dimensional vehicles.
Personally, I found Bert to be a mild-mannered, easily manipulated executive, whose interest in Buck’s seems a bit obsequious. Bert’s professional position seems at odd with his apparent lack of understanding about the world outside of his own. Buck’s is a misogynistic, calculating, self-absorbed huckster, who happens to be very good at what he does. Buck’s is introduced as an entrepreneur, however, as peeled layers reveal, he seems at heart to be a somewhat bitter and hateful individual, clearly in contrast to his professed philosophical altruism, and enjoying his superior material wealth to Bert’s. In all fairness, Bert never seems to stop pursuing Buck’s approval. Although the premise of the book is interesting, it left many arguments unexplored.
Although I don’t believe it to be the authors sole intention, the underlying idea seems to be that formal education is useless. While not a guarantee of success, I would not want to perpetuate the idea that it has no value, or conversely, that it is the only thing that he does. This book possibly provides insight into what we see and what we think that we see. As a philosophical question, it may stimulate conversation. However, I suspect that we will never view the shoe-shine men the same way again!
Daddy Big Bucks
Publisher: Writers & Poets.Com
ISBN: 0970380356
Reviewed By: Angela Hailey
Black Butterfly Review