Mark Sternum, a professor who teaches spelling and grammar at
Boston's McClintock College, is full of droll observations about
the rules that govern our language, but he leads a diligent if
somewhat detached life. Friends and family try to coax him into
deeper involvement, yet he keeps even his lover at arm's length. He
screens all incoming calls, including his eccentric sister's "word
pictures" about the waning days of their comatose mother. One day,
an African-American single mother who has failed the college's
basic skills test for the last time accuses Mark of "prejudgism,"
and Mark is fired. Blown off course, he monitors the ensuing
academic skirmish from a distance as his case makes national
headlines, and turns his attention instead to the graceful rhythms
of a small Shaker community. As the scrambled pieces of Mark's life
and the simple ways of the Shakers begin to merge, Mark finds new
beauty in his own maddening, blissful dependency on the people in
his life. Funny and generous, Downing's seemingly effortless prose
juxtaposes cunning portraits of academic functionaries weathering
the age of political correctness with the people and values of the
last Shaker families in America.
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