Mad Man is a careening crash course in advertising told through the flaming wreckage of a four-decade advertising career.

True stories, culled and reformulated for mainstream consumption, these true ad tales are from Cameron Day’s salacious Advertising Survival Guide trilogy series. Each tale stripped of industry jargon and career pep talks. What’s left? The mirth, the mayhem, the scars, the colorful curse words, and the occasional saints who managed to make the journey a joy, albeit temporarily.

Psychopaths, pill-poppers, shady agency principals, shifty characters. and brand messiahs all await you in these pages. Names have been altered to protect the litigious, but the trainwrecks are all too real. You’ll laugh, wince, and feel the sting as I navigate the carnival midway that was (and is) advertising—plundering, pillaging, and sometimes winning along the way.

The best part? You don’t have to be bat-guano crazy to enjoy it. Mildly pissed off will do. Give this book to your parents if you’re an advertising person and they have no idea what you fuckin’ do. Give it to your barber or bartender. Give it to your probation officer, if you have one. Give it a read. At the very least, you’ll have some real-world ad tales that could have gotten me cancelled.

Why should the TV show Mad Men have all the fun?