<p>Tobias Wolff’s masterful short story about one woman’s quiet revenge on the pomposity and arrogance of academia</p> <p>Meticulous funny eccentric—Mary has always been mindful of the complex role she plays as a professor of history. Her lectures are carefully written out beforehand; her departmental loyalties ambiguous. She is so careful in fact that she began to see herself as flat dull and lifeless.</p> <p>The closing of Brandon College the institution she’d spent more than fifteen years at changes everything. Forced to find another position Mary finds herself at an experimental college in rainy Oregon. Sickly and unhappy Mary feels as if she’s dying—until a letter from an old colleague holds promises of a bright future. Louise works for a prestigious school in upstate New York and wants to help her secure a position there. Excited Mary flies across the country for an interview. But things aren’t as they seem and Mary disenchanted with Louise’s vanity and the futility of the university for once throws caution to the wind.</p>