by David Lodge
First published 1989
Vic Wilcox runs an engineering factory and believes in hard work, profit margins, and practical solutions. Dr Robyn Penrose teaches English literature and champions feminist theory, postmodern criticism, and social justice. When a university partnership program forces them together, Wilcox must shadow the academic while she observes his industrial world. Their first encounters crackle with mutual incomprehension. He dismisses her theoretical frameworks as useless abstractions. She condemns his capitalist enterprise as exploitative patriarchy. Yet as Wilcox visits her seminars on Victorian novels and Penrose witnesses factory floor realities, both discover complexities they never expected. The gruff manufacturer reveals unexpected depths beneath his blunt exterior. The idealistic professor confronts the practical challenges of keeping businesses alive and workers employed. Their clash of worldviews gradually transforms into something neither anticipated.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary, academia, academic
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, fish-out-of-water
Period: 20th-Century
384 pages · Paperback · Penguin