Illiberal Education; a Novel

From the Foreword: "...While the midwestern college campus setting for this novel is of its essence, it is not in the end primarily a novel about the vagaries of academic life. It is, in fact, an account of the search for human authenticity and integrity--for personal wholeness--by two of its characters; of the painful process from which one of the characters has already emerged in her search; and of the unwelcome opportunity for self-knowledge that circumstances foisted, willy-nilly, upon three others. Rather than beingh a novel just about academic life, it is instead an extended metaphor for the larger life process in which we are all engaged. Each of us has known those three modes of experience, sometimes seriatim, sometimgs in painful combination, and in their presence we have known the charpness of our disappointments and the exhilaration of our satisfactions. It may even be possible that the story...will find a place in the reader's own quest for wholeness. That would be the most rewarding outcome an author could possible derive from his writing." In the course of their search for authenticity, characters in ILLIBERAL EDUCATION, A NOVEL, find themselves caught up in issues of religious opportunism, generational conflict, romantic exploitation, gender identity, and academic politics. It is, in those respects, a very contemporary story.