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Title: Who are these people?
Review: This book is a good read. It has forbiden sex and suspense. But it has it's flaws. The protagonist, Ted Swenson is a creative writing professor at a small New England college. One of his criteria for good writing is that the characters have to be believable. It is interesting to apply his principles to the novel itself. Swenson comes off as quite believable, but his nemisis, Angela Argo is not. Her destructive actions have no conceivable motive. She is too clever and her timing is too acurate to suppose that she is psychotic. Likewise, the campus atmosphere is not like anything I have ever seen(for example, the English Department party), and while sex between faculty and students has become no-no, the description of the faculty meeting on this subject is an unbelievable exageration of the PC attitudes that prevail. What saves the book is the portrayal of Swenson. I have met him - many of him. And there are parts of himin every middleaged man.
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