A novel about a graduate student who decides to follow her disgraced mentor to a university that gives safe harbor to scholars of ill repute, igniting a crisis of work and a test of her conscience (and marriage).
Outstanding ... A very funny, very contemporary fable plays out as the novel entertains the absurdities of a world in which politics skews every aspect of daily life, from conversation to cuisine ... Comic.
Not daunting ... A comic tale ... Taranto also mines character names for humor and their aptronymic qualities, letting his inner Charles Dickens loose ... Taranto sometimes teeters on a polemic tightrope, but he avoids losing his balance as he keeps his eye on the prize.
