Sleep till Noon

A rags-to-riches tale so outrageously hysterical it could have only come from the marvelous mind of Max Shulman, bestselling author of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis

A sensitive boy growing up in a bad neighborhood, Harry Riddle doesn’t fit in with the kids who hold up gas stations, steal purses, and drop safes on policemen. He prefers to contemplate the American dream and his father’s advice for achieving it: “Get rich, boy. Then sleep till noon and screw ’em all.” But when Harry gets his first job as a cafeteria busboy, a customer warns him that money leads to corruption. The idea disturbs him so much that he accidently sticks his hand into a meat grinder.

Luckily, attorney Walter Obispo witnesses Harry’s mishap and manages to win him a hefty court settlement—which becomes a lot less hefty when Obispo takes his eighty percent cut. Impressed, Harry decides to make his fortune in law. But the shortcuts he takes to pass the bar and start his own practice do him no good when he loses case after case after case. Not to worry, however, because our hero soon learns the oldest trick in book: Marry rich. With an heiress as a bride, Harry can’t lose—anything except his friends, his integrity, and his sanity, that is.