Awaken the Used Car Salesman Within

Lynne Perras teaches communication arts at the University of Calgary.

Awaken the Used Car Salesman Within is a clever parody of self-help
books that promote inner reflection and psychological improvement.
Touted as a guide to becoming a more effective salesperson, the book
begins with a short introduction that the two authors conclude by
signing, “Disingenuously yours.” The rest of the book, a tongue-
in-cheek guide to achieving success through deception and manipulation,
features such maxims and rules as: “Warning: The Surgeon General has
determined that honesty is dangerous to your financial health”; and
“When you tell the suc—customer that the car they are looking at is
a one-owner vehicle you’re not required by law to tell them that the
owner was Gilles Villeneuve”; and “This above all: To thine own self
be true. But feel free to lie like a rug to everyone else.” Almost
every page is accompanied by a humorous black-and-white illustration by
Christopher Hutsul.

Awaken the Used Car Salesman Within is definitely aimed at a male
audience; there are a couple of somewhat sexist comments among the
maxims, and the salesperson is always identified by means of the generic
“he.” Still, the book offers a refreshing commentary on modern
society’s paradoxical quest for both material and spiritual
fulfilment.