For Love of Art and Ericka

Ericka is an alluring, ambitious arts marketer on a mission to change the dismissive, elitist attitude the media has with the arts. Ted is an underachieving heir to a media mogul, and a handsome womanizer afraid of commitment. Their affinity for great art drew them together and into a hot, brief affair in Boston.

Five years later, he conditionally inherits a radio station in Cleveland where they come together again. After she convinces him to make-over his failing sports talk radio station into "Arts Talk," he makes her program director, but Ericka's aggressive, controversial style gives him fits. The fighting intensifies, raising the temperature on their suppressed sexual desires for each other.

The initial transition to Arts Talk is a struggle, hilarious to some, welcoming to others, and vulgar to the elites. Eventually, ratings improve, and success appears plausible when a surprise attack puts the station and Ted's financial future in jeopardy.

In the backdrop, federal deregulation and the rise of the Internet are drastically changing the broadcasting industry. A colorful cadre of characters muddle through the changeover with humor and insight. The bull in the arts talk studio is star sports talker, Guy Tripillo, whose ironclad, high-priced contract, and poor employment history tethers him to Ted and Ericka with surprising results.

Based on a his own stage play, Truesdell's first novel offers a satirical metaphor forecasting the media, political and class divisiveness percolating at the start of the new millennium. Smartly interwoven is a sassy, romantic comedy with topsy-turvy twists to its newsflash finale.