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What Makes Sammy Run?
One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to someone else. This is true because when you teach something, you get to learn it twice.
That’s why, on my way to reading 1,000 books, I stop and share the best insights, stories, and lessons here on Medium.
Today’s book is book #883, and it’s called What Makes Sammy Run?, by Budd Schulberg. Let’s hit it!
Too many of us know a Sammy Glick.
He’s the guy who takes all the credit for your group project, steps on anyone who blocks his ascension to the top of his chosen hierarchy, and is only aware of you if he thinks you can help him.
What Makes Sammy Run? was published in 1941, and it’s the story of a copy-boy-turned-Hollywood-executive named Sammy Glick who rises to the top on the bent backs of others and finds that there’s no one and nothing at the top beside his own emptiness.
It’s a cautionary tale about power, ambition, and greed, and although Hollywood is the natural setting, the world can seem overrun with Glicks.
The story is told by Al Manheim, who starts off the novel with Glick at a newspaper in New York and essentially becomes his only friend, as Glick dives deeper into his own narcissism and paranoia.
“Even though Sammy knew I could read him like the top line of…
