What makes him different than your average publicist?
Scott has a deeper and darker understanding of the today's profit-driven media. He knows that in this 24-hour news era filled with shock and scandal, there's no such thing as good publicity. Only the right kind of bad publicity.

So Scott's a bit of a devious bastard then.
You'd certainly think so from his history. He's waged subtle PR campaigns for some of the world's most disreputable industries; big liquor, big tobacco, gun manufacturers, you name it. His resumé might as well come with a pentagram.

And yet if you didn't know what he did for a living, you'd think he was the nicest guy. He's pleasant. He's witty. He's always respectful to others. And he never loses his temper. The man is downright unflappable. In his line of work, you have to be.

Is there anyone special in Scott's life?
He has lots of acquaintances, especially in the media, but otherwise he lives an isolated existence.

Shortly after the story begins, however, Scott meets a bright but peculiar deaf woman and her 13-year-old daughter. The mother, Jean, has completely removed herself from the mass media spectrum, to the point where she doesn't even know who Jerry Seinfeld is. By contrast, her daughter Madison is obsessed with pop/marketing culture and all the devious forces behind it. To her, Scott is like Morpheus with the red pill. She wants him to take her through the looking glass and show her all the tricks and angles of the media world.

For different reasons and in different ways, Scott is drawn to both mother and child. And he slowly gets pulled into their complicated lives, despite his many concerns.

But all of this takes a back seat to his latest PR assignment. This time his job is to get the client out of the news, and to get him out in one piece.

Who's the client?
His name is Jeremy Sharpe, aka Hunta. He's a young L.A. rapper with a top-selling album and a fairly clean lifestyle (at least by rapper standards). Unfortunately, his hit song "Bitch Fiend" has allegedly inspired a sexual assault, which allegedly inspired a tragic school shooting. Although the connection is tenuous, that doesn't stop the parents and critics and pundits and politicians from turning Hunta into America's latest bogeyman. Even worse, there's a woman from Hunta's past who's about to come forward with her own allegations of sexual assault.

Scott knows there's no amount of positive spin that can get Hunta out of this jam. The only way to bury the story is to upstage it with a scandal of his own devising; a hoax so grand and elaborate that it forces the whole nation to look his way. If the story's in Scott's hands, he can at least control how it develops and, more important, how it ends.

Of course manipulating the news is one thing, controlling it is quite another. Suffice it to say that there are complications.

So is SLICK satire? Black comedy? A nihilistic drama? What?
Although SLICK is filled with gobs of dark humor and dry commentary, it's first and foremost a story about one man finding trust and human connection in an age of constant spin. It may not paint a pretty picture of the media's "backstage" world, but it does remind you the folks who work there are still human. And that sometimes even the worst things are done with the best intentions.