John L'Heureux, who teaches creative writing at Stanford University, mines the ego-ridden and priority-skewed hallways of academia for the characters of his latest novel, which pokes a satirical finger at the lot of literature academics. The book is set in the English department of an unnamed California university. Among the many skewers that he sticks faculty members with is his categorization of them into two types, fools and Turks. Yet not all is lost when in sweeps a brilliant theorist and novelist who attempts--often successfully--to open some eyes, turn some heads, and, ultimately, change some behaviors.