About the Author

JANE SMILEY is the author of numerous novels, including A Thousand Acres, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, Golden Age, the concluding volume of The Last Hundred Years trilogy. She is also the author of five works of nonfiction and a series of books for young adults. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she has also received the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. She lives in Northern California.

Reviews

“Delectably entertaining.... An uproariously funny and at the same time hauntingly melancholy portrait of a college community in the Midwest.” —The New York Times

“Fast, hilarious, and heartbreaking...Not for a minute does Moo lose its perfect satiric pitch or its pacing. . . . Don't skip a page, don't skip a paragraph. It's going to be on the final.” —People

“Smart, irreverent, and wickedly tender.... Moo suggests a mix of Tom Wolfe's wit and John Updike's satiny reach.... Engaging.” —The Boston Globe

Smiley, now acclaimed for her portrayals of the dark side of America's pastoral ideal (a Pulitzer for A Thousand Acres, LJ 10/1/91, plus her wonderful novellas, Ordinary Love and Good Will, LJ 9/15/89), returns with a sharp-edged spoof of academic life. "Moo U" is a large, Midwestern "ag and tech" school where campus politics and intrigue rule. Smiley has assembled a large, colorful group of characters who will be familiar to ivory tower dwellers: the campus secretary who controls personnel and paper flow, the faculty who plot for power and revenge, plus the dining hall worker, the students, and the administrators, all with their own agendas. While entertaining and on-target as parody, Moo is not as riveting as Smiley's best work. This should do well and be very popular with higher education insiders. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/94.]-Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.

"Delectably entertaining.... An uproariously funny and at the same time hauntingly melancholy portrait of a college community in the Midwest." -The New York Times

"Fast, hilarious, and heartbreaking...Not for a minute does Moo lose its perfect satiric pitch or its pacing. . . . Don't skip a page, don't skip a paragraph. It's going to be on the final." -People

"Smart, irreverent, and wickedly tender.... Moo suggests a mix of Tom Wolfe's wit and John Updike's satiny reach.... Engaging." -The Boston Globe