Reviews

?Francine Prose, a literary arsonist with blistering wit, sends up both smug academics and politically correct undergrads in the satrical bonfire Blue Angel.? -- "Entertainment Weekly?Her trenchant satire of sexual harassment gives political correctness a much deserved poke in the eye.? -- "Vanity Fair?Screamingly funny.? -- "USA Today?A mesmerizing and hilarious tour de force.? -- "Us Weekly?An engaging comedy of manners?Prose once again proves herself one of out great cultural satirists.?-- "Kirkus Reviews (starred review)?Prose is a pro, and this funny yet devastating novel will rock literary and academic worlds alike.? -- "Mademoiselle

Prose's latest novel charts the downward spiral of a creative writing professor caught up in a sexual harrassment scandal. The years ago, Ted Swanson wrote a major novel about growing up with a crazy father who later killed himself. Now Swanson's blocked on a new novel with a contrived plot and hasn't written anything in years. An autobiographical writer in the throes of a mid-life crisis, he feels he's suffocating in his comfortable, boring job at a small New England college, stuck with a predictable wife, a sullen daughter, and a life that offers him nothing to write about. So he becomes entranced by his most talented student, Angela, a girl with numerous facial piercings who can spin a page-burning novel out of her imagination. Soon, Angela's story of a young girl who becomes involved with a teacher seems to be coming true. Is Swenson lured by her to be coming true. Is Swenson lured to her writing talent, or is Angela entrapping him to conduct research? Prose interestingly juxtaposes questions of life and art with issues of complicity and harrassment. Like the professor's debasement in the Marlene Dietrich film of the same name, Swenson's impending entanglement is compelling and fascinating to behold. Recommended for all fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/99.]-Reba Leiding, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisburg, VA

Trust the iconoclastic Prose to turn conventional received wisdom on such subjects as predatory professors, innocent female students and the necessity for a degree of political correctness on campus on their silly heads. In this astutely observed, often laugh-aloud funny and sometimes touching academic comedy, she proves more skeptic than cynic, with an affection for her central character that is surprisingly warm. He is Ted Swenson, a happily married and reasonably content novelist who teaches creative writing at a much less than Ivy League college in darkest Vermont. Stuck on his own latest book, he is nevertheless charmed and intrigued by the writing skills of the unlikely, ungainly and punky Angela Argo. (Prose takes the considerable risk of offering chunks of Angela's work, and the reader can see in it what poor Ted does.) Out of the best intentions--and an only half-acknowledged but not compelling concupiscent itch--he encourages the girl, who is soon hanging on his every word of praise and hinting that if only Ted's editor could see her work... One moment of lustful madness that is not even consummated (a broken tooth intervenes), a disinclination of Ted's editor to see Angela's novel-in-progress and Ted's goose is cooked. Suddenly, every tiny hint of lechery or unfairness toward his students, an outburst at an unbearable dinner party, a kindly gesture are all evidence against him, dragged out in a climactic academic hearing that is at once farcical and horribly realistic. A slightly indeterminate ending--for where does poor Ted, sans wife and job, go from here?--is the only minor blemish on a peerlessly accomplished performance, at once tinglingly contemporary and timelessly funny. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.