Perfect Agreement

About this book

Mark Sternum is full of droll observations about the rules that govern our language. A professor who teaches spelling and grammar at Bostons McClintock College ("An odd job for a college professor " he is told "but no one else seems to be doing it") he leads a diligent if somewhat detached life. Friends and family try to coax him into deeper involvement but he keeps his lover at arms length and screens all incoming calls - including his eccentric sisters "word pictures" about the waning days of their comatose mother. Then Rashelle Whippet an African-American single mother who fails the colleges basic skills test for the last time accuses Mark of "prejudgism " and he is fired. Blown off course he monitors the ensuing academic skirmish from a distance as his case makes national headlines. In the midst of this mess his lover decides to move out of town an anonymous supporter E-mails him daily advice and his father Thomas a photographer famous for his pictures of the Shaker communities that once thrived in America turns up for a visit. Mark is particularly surprised by this last turn of events: he had believed his father was dead. The mysterious Thomas moves in and begins a tale about Sister Celia and the Negro Jesus who visited the Shakers more than a hundred years earlier. In spite of himself Mark is mesmerized by the story which offers him the chance to understand finally his fathers lonely passion for the Shakers.