Book reviews: 'Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream' and 'Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television'

'Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream' by Megan Greenwell

Several years ago, the four ordinary Americans profiled in Megan Greenwell's new book "wanted only to raise their families and contribute to their communities," said Jennifer Szalai in The New York Times. Instead, they became unwitting victims of the private equity industry, their jobs or security sacrificed to the profit imperatives of distant owners that can score wins while destroying the companies they acquire. Greenwell had seen the pattern up close herself in 2019, when she resigned as the editor in chief of Deadspin, an online sports magazine, after one such firm scooped up the outlet's parent company and began running it into the ground. Bad Company is the result of her efforts to understand private equity, and it's "definitely a critical take on the industry." Still, "Greenwell offers stories that are textured, not one-note tales of woe," and she writes about the sector's troubling business model "with potent effect."

Think of Bad Company as "an essential guide" to an industry that now employs 8% of American workers yet "operates largely in the shadows," said Ann Levin in the Associated Press. The book's everyday heroes include a Wyoming doctor who watched LifePoint try to squeeze profits out of a hospital that wasn't producing any, a Texas journalist who was working for Gannett newspapers when the chain cut its staff in half, and a Virginia housing advocate who wound up in a rat-infested apartment complex owned by a firm on the other side of the continent. The fourth, Liz Marin, worked as a floor supervisor at a Toys "R" Us as KKR and Mitt Romney's former firm, Bain Capital, loaded it with debt and drove it to bankruptcy. These are grim stories, but Greenwell's outlook "remains surprisingly optimistic." After all, each of the people she profiles is an example of a victim who has fought back.

Unfortunately, Greenwell's central thesis "doesn't make much sense," said Gary Sernovitz in Bloomberg. Sure, there are times when private equity owners mismanage an acquisition, harm employees and communities, and profit all the same. "If you want sad endings, find sad stories," and that's what Greenwell has done well here. After 20 years in private equity, "I appreciated much of the interesting, grim material in Bad Company." But private equity firms usually lose if they can't improve the performance of the companies they buy, and data shows that those run by private equity generally generate higher earnings than publicly traded companies do. "There are a lot of ways to govern a company, smart and stupid." It's no surprise that private equity is sometimes as stupid as a crony corporate board or a founder's dim-witted oldest son.

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'Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television' by Todd S. Purdum

The story of how Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz risked everything to create I Love Lucy "has been told often enough from Ball's side," said Ty Burr in The Washington Post. In a "welcome" new biography of the couple's less-celebrated half, author and journalist Todd S. Purdum "gives us Arnaz's life story, and it's an often surprising one." Most people still think of the actor, musician, and producer as the straight man to one of America's greatest comediennes. "And he was that guy. But he was most definitely not only that guy." For one thing, he was, as the book's subtitle proclaims, the man who invented TV, and "the hyperbole is merited." Here, at last, Arnaz finally receives "his rightful due as a protean force, perhaps the protean force, in early television history."

Purdum tells Arnaz's story "with an élan his subject would appreciate," said Scott Eyman in The Wall Street Journal. Born in 1917 into the Cuban aristocracy, Arnaz fled the island nation at 16 when the president was deposed in a coup. After working odd jobs, he found quick success as a Miami singer and bandleader, and by 23 had already starred in a Broadway musical when he met the 28-year-old Ball during the making of a Hollywood adaptation. Both were chasing career rebounds in 1951 when they sold the idea of co-starring in a TV sitcom produced by their own company, Desilu. They went all-in, creating the three-camera setup still used for sitcoms today, performing in front of a live audience to maintain Ball's spontaneity, and shooting on film, which created reruns and therefore residuals.

Purdum's bio delivers "a nuanced portrait of both Arnaz's gifts and his tragic shortcomings," said Julia M. Klein in the Los Angeles Times. As Hollywood's first Latino studio head, Arnaz built a behemoth, and yet the pressure, compounded by racism, exacerbated his alcoholism. He'd also long cheated on Ball with prostitutes, and "in the end, Arnaz's addictive behaviors were his greatest challenge." The couple divorced in 1960 but stayed close, and while Arnaz, who died at 69, never enjoyed a late-career comeback, one lifelong friend described him as a serious, wonderful man who felt deeply. "Purdum's empathetic biography endorses that assessment."