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Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror
by James Hynes

Published: 1998-04-15
Paperback : 338 pages
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A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Publisher's Weekly Best Book of the Year

Combining the wit of David Lodge with Poe's delicious sense of the macabre, these are three witty, ...
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Introduction

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Publisher's Weekly Best Book of the Year

Combining the wit of David Lodge with Poe's delicious sense of the macabre, these are three witty, spooky novellas of satire set in academia?a world where Derrida rules, love is a "complicated ideological position," and poetic justice is served with an ideological twist.

Editorial Review

A typical line from Publish and Perish is the final thought of a character who's about to die in an oh-so-dreadful fashion: "This can't be happening to me. I've got tenure." Horror and humor together are always delightful, but rarely is the combination executed with such gleeful panache as in the three novellas that make up Publish and Perish. The humor is at the expense of American academics, from struggling postdocs to crusty full professors. The characters spout silly jargon, wrestle with their writing problems, preen their tender egos, and skewer their colleagues. Most are likeable: their vanity is so human, it's almost touching. But the horror isn't played for laughs; it's ruthless and chilling, in the tradition of Edgar A. Poe and M. R. James. As one New York Times reviewer writes, "Publish and Perish is an odd and exhilarating experience--the playfulness of post-modernism at its best somehow celebrating the urgent, earnest suspense of old-fashioned, cliff-hanging narrative."

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Member Reviews

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  "Very funny"by Pamela K. (see profile) 02/20/10

I loved this horror twist on the academic lifestyle. Hynes is a great author who has a lot of fun poking fun at those with high IQ's and low EQ's.

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