The Curtain - A Novel

Have you met Henry Maddox? He knows you - not personally of course... he really only knows your data. But from that data he actually may know you better than you think you know yourself. Henry knows where you've been and what you've bought. He knows all of your friends. Henry not only knows your behaviors, he understands your tendencies. And from those tendencies, he can predict what you're going to do before you've actually done it. Who is Henry Maddox? He is a 21st century marketing consultant and he specializes in highly personal and irresistibly persuasive advertising. Henry's strategies combine modern data mining (Big Data) techniques with other advanced and controversial marketing practices (Market Fragmentation, Cross Promotion, and Conglomerate Propagandizing) to the point where consumers don't even know they are being sold. Businesses love Henry because he not only moves product, he actually controls their customers. But when Henry is forced to face how his techniques affect real people, he realizes he has inadvertently given corporations the power to destroy society for their own ends. THE CURTAIN explores the effect that increasingly sophisticated marketing techniques have on communities, families, and individuals. In an age of digital distractions, who remembers the transcendent morality that has allowed past civilizations to prosper? When corporations have the influence and motive to define people by what they consume, are we as individuals losing the substance of who we really are? THE CURTAIN is entertaining, fun, thought provoking, educational, and frightening. Ord's storytelling is brilliant and his research extraordinary. THE CURTAIN is a must read for anyone that watches television or movies, listens to the radio, accesses the internet, logs into social media, has a smart phone, participates in loyalty card programs, or uses GPS technology. In short, THE CURTAIN is for everyone.

People who seek to profit at the expense of others have never had it so good. Tools exist in today’s digital economy that allow the knowledgeable and motivated to manipulate and even enslave the less sophisticated. Patrick Ord was so concerned about educating others to these dangers that he wrote THE CURTAIN. Though the content of THE CURTAIN could have been conveyed in a nonfiction format, Ord wanted to reach a broader audience. He thus wrote a story that allows the reader to digest sophisticated and destructive insider business strategies while being engrossed in an entertaining plot. Ord’s formula has proven to be an outstanding success. Readers as diverse as grandmothers to Chief Technology Officers and teenagers to PHDs have all provided rave reviews. If current day business is not so much concerned with creating products as making consumers, as Ord’s main character Henry Maddox believes, it’s time for you to meet your maker. Patrick Ord owns and operates his own business consulting firm. He and his wife Emily have five children. Visit Patrick’s blog for THE CURTAIN at henrymaddox.com. A SAMPLING OF REVIEWS: ＂This summer I read this novel in two days sitting on my couch trying to ignore morning sickness. It was pretty gripping. Told like a Dan Brown thriller, The Curtain exposes some of the biggest secrets of the Internet business. Hint: it’s all about getting your information. And there’s a part about how mommy blogging is used to drive women to perfection which ultimately leads them to buy more stuff. You can imagine I was pretty engrossed.＂ - Courtney Kendrick from cjanekendrick.com ＂I’m mad that these big-profit businesses can get into our homes. I’m mad that without permission they can just put things out there that are dangerous and that can hurt people. I read a book this summer called ＂The Curtain＂ that was SOOO interesting... Read it if you want an interesting way to open your eyes to how companies work to gather information and use it to catch people in their snare and make money. It’s scary business.＂ - Shawni Pothier from 71toes.com ＂THE CURTAIN goes so deeply into how your data is used, how much it effects you and everyone else. It’s a lesson to be learned, which is taught, I think, very well. After you read the last page, you look up, and realize, not only was it a good story, but that it’s happening.＂ - Nathan (9th Grade)