Book excerpt: In Portrait of the Writer as a Domesticated Animal, the narrator accepts a job writing a laudatory authorized biography of a fast-food magnate, whose egotism borders on megalomania. She thus enters a world of call girls, celebrities, investment portfolios, and bitter rivalries, where the desire to dominate others motivates every decision. Quickly seduced, she takes to all the silver platters and evenings spent chatting with Robert De Niro--until her cold-hearted, brutish boss receives an unexpected visit from his mother, who upends his faith in the corporate world, threatening to destroy both his opulent lifestyle and his sanity. A trenchant satire of greed and self-interest--in idealists and tycoons both--Lydie Salvayre's latest novel proves her once again to be France's funniest and most insightful critic of modern life. Portrait was a finalist for the Prix Goncourt, France's highest literary award.