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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
Dollartorium by Ron Pullins follows the very hard-working but not very successful Ralph, who runs a small corndog shop, the Corny Doo Doggery, in Kansas, earning a modest living while noticing the growing divide between the wealthy and everyone else. Financial pressures mount as bills outpace income, and his wife becomes determined to achieve wealth by any means. When an infomercial for the Dollartorium promises fortune through business courses, Ralph reluctantly enrolls and begins learning about hiring, marketing, and business strategies. The Dollartorium empire eventually collapses under its own practices, leaving Ralph to manage the situation. He returns to his roots, focusing on his family, the honesty of his work, and perfecting his corndogs, finding stability and purpose in the simple business he originally started.
Ron Pullins’ Dollartorium is an absolute delight, bursting with imagination and wit that transforms a story about money and ambition into pure enjoyment. Ralph, Stella, and Phyllis come alive through their actions and choices, from Ralph’s careful devotion to making corn dogs to Stella’s thoughtful support of her father and Phyllis’s comically extreme pursuit of wealth. The Dollartorium itself is a wonderfully surreal world, with its half-lizard, half-human creature guiding Ralph through the institution’s strange rules and extravagant rituals. While the story includes sharp, playful exaggerations that lampoon wealth obsession and corporate rituals, like the Master instructing Ralph to sell money to people who already have money, these moments are a testament to Pullins's skill in symbolism and metaphorical prose, balancing humor, imagination, and social observation in a story that totally entertains and amuses with its originality and intelligent wit. Very highly recommended.
