The University of Wisconsin Press
Fiction
How I Beat Coca-Cola and Other Tales of One-Upmanship Carl Djerassi crafts a shrewd collection of comedies of manners, exposing the foibles of elite tribes—business executives, chefs, scientists, professors, musicians, and other clever characters. They spar in battles of one-upmanship using class, education, gender, or prestige as their weapons, sometimes leaving damaged bystanders in their wake but sometimes finding their superiority deflated by unexpected turns of events. “One of the pleasures of Carl Djerassi’s witty, richly detailed stories is that they have the rare merit of letting us look into some special works—art, science—that are usually closed to writers who are only writers. The pen of the trained observer is as acute as his eye.” “This was a meal which, the more I ate, the hungrier I became. . . . The stories are attitudinal and intellectual, even instructive. They bring the reader into the culture and ‘cultivated taste’ of the sophisticated, worldly, even jaunty Djerassi: upper-crust Brits, opera, food, art, money, and sex (and sex and sex). . . . These stories are sophisticated fun.”
Please see this obituary published in the New York Times. For more information about the author and his other works, visit djerassi.com. Praise: “This was a meal which, the more I ate, the hungrier I became. . . . The stories are attitudinal and intellectual, even instructive. They bring the reader into the culture and ‘cultivated taste’ of the sophisticated, worldly, even jaunty Djerassi: upper-crust Brits, opera, food, art, money, and sex (and sex and sex). . . . These stories are sophisticated fun.” Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.)
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“These stories describe abstract conflicts, jockeying for prestige, or social interactions seen as complexes of negotiation, and the pleasure they give is akin to that of being taken through a skillful game of chess by an explicitly authoritative commentator.” |
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Carl Djerassi (1923–2015) was the author of many novels, plays, essays, poetry, and short stories published in twenty languages. Renowned as both a writer and a scientist, he was an emeritus professor of chemistry at Stanford University and the recipient of thirty honorary doctorates as well as many international scientific honors. His books published by the University of Wisconsin Press are: How I Beat Coca-Cola and Other Tales of One-Upmanship; 
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