Straight Man

Resigning as interim head of the English department, fifty-year-old Hank Devereaux was more than ready for a midlife crisis when he found out he would have to fire twenty percent of his staff in order to make ends meet. He has a dangerous philosophy that life, and academic life, could be simpler. He is half in love with three women, unable to understand his younger daughter, and unable to come to terms with his father. However, he is blind to the bigger picture and the small-world politics that are always present around him, as his colleagues compete for positions and marriages dissolve and reassemble. He is a man at war with himself, stuck between cause and effect—the scourge of the campus geese, and his wife's source of sadness.