Book Review: Dollartorium by Ron Pullins

Reviewed by Gabriella Harrison

An honest worker is seduced by the allure of corporate America in this funny, purposeful novel

Ralph, a local businessman in a small town, loves making corndogs or, as he fondly calls them, “corny doo dogs.” Assisted by his daughter Stella and his ever unsatisfied wife Phyllis, he serves the locals corndogs at his famous Corny Doo Doggery and spends most of his time reading Plato while thinking “Platonic” thoughts.

While Stella throws herself into the work, Phyllis is busy imagining the kind of life she believes she was cheated out of. Honest labor doesn’t appeal to her; she thinks wealth should fall into her lap, preferably by riding on someone else’s shoulders. Phyllis makes no secret of her contempt for the Doggery. “She is no maker of corn dogs. That’s for sure. Her hands are too delicate. Her manicure too expensive.” She’s content to let her daughter sweat in the kitchen so long as she herself is spared. What she really wants is a life dripping with luxury, and she hounds Ralph to make it happen.

Then comes the story’s oddest twist: out of the family’s television leaps the Money Master, a little man clad in dollar bills, singing and dancing as if he’d stepped straight out of a carnival. His pitch is simple: fame, fortune, pleasure. Phyllis doesn’t need much persuading; she’s ready to follow him before he finishes his tune.

Ralph ends up trapped between his love for Phyllis and his love for the fryer. He’d rather flip corndogs all day, but she insists he enroll at the Dollartorium, a kind of grotesque school for wealth. Reluctantly, he goes. There the Money Master drills into him a philosophy of keeping the rich on top and the poor in their place. Bit by bit, Ralph’s sense of dignity erodes. The man who once found joy in a simple trade now begins to measure life in ledgers and power charts, his head filled with grand talk of domination and profit.

He undergoes a complete reorientation, which causes his perception of what is important in life and his values to change. He adopts a completely new mindset, centered around the accumulation of wealth and power and the complete domination of others through capitalist principles. Ralph soon becomes obsessed with being among the top one percent of society.

Moments such as the Money Master’s infomercial land with sharp, observational humor, highlighting the seductive pull of status symbols over substance. Ralph, in particular, offers a grounded contrast, reaffirming the quiet dignity in skilled labor amid the noise of ambition.

Author Ron Pullins succeeds in painting a morbid, laughable picture of modern society driven by greed and self-centered individualistic desires for riches and wealth in Dollartorium. He portrays a rotten society that shuns the pursuit of honest work but promotes self-aggrandizement, a total erosion of value systems that encourage integrity in exchange for greed and self-centeredness.

Dollartorium cleverly shows how these get-rich-quick schemes usually lure people in with promises of a life of luxury and wealth. Unfortunately, these schemes usually end badly, as the poor keep chasing shadows while the rich stay on top. In the book, money is the master, and humans are portrayed as brainless machines and puppets being told what is good and bad according to the dictates of a flawed society that only sees value through money. This value is solely measured by the size of one’s pocket, and people sacrifice their dreams and passions on the altar of material gain.

Pullins writes in a clear and direct style, befitting the humor genre well and matching Ralph’s straightforward personality. The book reads almost like a modern fable, which points out how empty corporate talk can fool people who are ambitious for success. Although it addresses serious issues, the Money Master serves as a source of comic relief by drawing attention to how people crave status over real value.

Beyond the surface, Ron Pullins’ mentally-stimulating novel Dollartorium advocates for a community-centered approach to growth and success rather than the pursuit of selfish individual desires. It emphasizes the restoration of values and principles centered on bringing our humanity to the fore through shared success, healthy relationships, and love for each other.

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