Stubborn as a Mule

Peter MacTeague, president of Brewster College, is a right-wing Economist who once advocated allowing the sale of babies "just like beer and soap." While pressing to make worship of free markets the college creed, as he was handpicked to do, he also launches a campaign for the Senate. Polls show him ahead in his effort to unseat one of the dying breed of Republican moderates by running to his right in the Maine primary on a platform that calls for abolishing the income tax. MacTeague's undoing begins late one night when some drunken students impulsively "kidnap" White, Brewster College's renowned mascot mule, and deposit him on the front porch of the president's house. MacTeague is not home, and his efforts to cover up his whereabouts at the time of the braying mule's delivery start him skidding down the slope to political ruin. Connected plot lines spoof worship of unregulated markets, "politically correct" academic culture, sensation-mongering journalism, and networking among the privileged as this comic romp unfolds. About the author: Richard Fallon has been a professor at Harvard Law School since 1982. He has written numerous books and articles on law, primarily focusing on constitutional law. Stubborn as a Mule is his first novel.