From Publishers Weekly
English instructors and other academics, tenured and not, will howl at the pseudonymous Jones's skewering of the politics of college teaching in this procedural set at the annual Christmastime meeting of the Modern Language Association. Nancy Cook, an assistant professor at Yale, knows she's off the tenure track, so she's at the meeting in Chicago to check out the meat market in anticipation of her next year's job search. Instead, Chicago police detective Boaz Dixon enlists her help in understanding the MLA and its members so he can find the killer who poisoned one professor and who may have murdered another, who fell to his death from a 10th floor balcony. Giving Boaz a contextual understanding of the organization, Nancy explains Deconstuctionalism, new and old literary philosophies, the positions of Tweeds, Trendies and Marxist-materialists and the power struggle among them all. Then another scholar is shot to death, and suspicions tighten on the MLA membership. A little romance spices the narrative, which includes a review course on literary criticism and an illuminating, irreverent inside look at the world of academic politics.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Six thousand literature teachers and grad students convene in Chicago for the annual Modern Language Association convention, then watch their numbers diminish alarmingly as the entire Wellesley hiring committee is poisoned (one fatality) and detestable deconstructionist Michael Alcott (U. of Arizona) is pushed over an atrium ledge while craning to see Jacques Derrida--with more victims still to be scheduled. Homicide cop Boaz Dixon, feeling unaccountably lost amid the tide of academics, recruits nontenured Nancy Cook (Yale) to give him an extended orientation on the profession's woes, punctuated by broad caricatures of luminaries from Camille Paglia to Harold Bloom. Unfortunatley, the prospect of further homicides among such a babbling, social-climbing, power-hungry ship of fools turns out to be much less fun than it sounds. Amateurish brainwork, far-fetched conclusions, sophomoric gossip- -not unlike the MLA itself. Fans of David Lodge's satires and Robert Barnard's academic mysteries will regret pseudonymous Jones's missed opportunities. --
Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
See all Editorial Reviews
(30)
$10.20
(28)
$12.60
(240)
$10.17
