A “free-range romantic comedy,” Chicken Wars by Adam Leigh is ‘eggs-actly’ what we need to get through the seemingly eternal summer.
Protagonist Jack Fogel is walking on eggshells. He wants to make a professional life outside of his family’s kosher chicken supply company, appropriately named Fogel’s Chickens. His grandfather Solly, the founder of the seventy-year-old business, demands Jack continue to run the business after he dies. Solly refuses to leave the business to Jack’s “inept father.” Jack’s chichi wife, Allison, however, envisions Jack as a TV personality, a TV writer, dreaming of his rise to fame. The dream goes afoul when Jack reads his grandfather’s will.
Grandpa Solly stipulates that for the continuance of Jack’s controlling share in the company he must take charge of the chicken business. To appease the fantasy of his demanding wife and fulfill his grandfather’s wish, nice- guy, Jack offers a compromise. He determined he could manage both careers: manage his grandfather’s business and realize his TV ambition.
Upon learning her husband’s decision, the la di da Alllison shouts in disbelief “you’re becoming a bloody butcher?” The marriage is over! They divorce. And that’s just the beginning of Jack’s tsuris.
Jack must also contend with a disgruntled former Fogel employee, the formidable Lionel Gutterman. Gutterman seeks revenge for his ignominious dismissal years earlier by Jack’s dead grandfather, Solly. Having become Fogel’s largest buying customer, Gutterman threatens Jack, “Either give me some of your interests {in the chicken business} or I will stop buying chickens from you, set up my own factory and watch Fogel’s Chickens collapse.” The ultimatum was accompanied by “a new-brand ambassador, “Chaim the Chicken” handing out leaflets advertising Gutterman’s new enterprise. Demoralized, his life looking worse by the minute Jack felt shaken and defeated.
Things began to shift when, post-divorce, Jack, meets Sonia on a blind date. Forthright and candid Sonia is everything Jack could ever want in a woman. Not only beautiful, Sonia is also the proud owner of a strictly vegan café. When she declares “I like my men to be honest.” Jack rises to the occasion. He reveals everything about his embittered life with his mother, his contentious divorce with his ex-wife, and his terrible relationship with both of his indifferent daughters. But he chickens out telling Sonia he is the owner of an abattoir.
A lighthearted fun-packed novel, Chicken Wars will delight both left wing, right wing, and chicken wing lovers; the surprising conclusion is ‘finger lickin’ good’.
