“Sordid U.” is a huge, sprawling State University in an urban setting. Maureen (“MoMo”) Dini, a 15-year administrative assistant at the university, has just been moved against her will from her original position in the Sociology Department because she has discovered truly shocking activity going on in the Sciences College Dean's office. This only adds to her deep dismay which has been building for years in regard to her employment in Sociology. She feels she's in a terribly vulnerable position because her husband is also employed by State U. (in another college, thankfully) and she must give him consideration. In order to “punish” MoMo and keep her quiet, Dean Nolan Reynolds decides to move her to the Biology Department. She is absolutely furious with his ridiculous “solution!”
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In her mind, this move solves nothing and MoMo begins to vent her blatant, profane fury almost daily through e-mail to her trusted and favorite confidant, Professor Len Jenson. Even though Len warns her that this is a dangerous practice for an employee, she persists, and almost from her first minute in Biology finds criminal activity to dutifully report to him. Len's wry replies and cautious advice only spur her on and MoMo becomes more and more reckless in her quest to expose the endless list of crimes she has observed and documented for years at the university.
Her breaking point arrives in the form of yet another bewildered, harassed female student who crawls to MoMo's desk after being manhandled by two “old goat” tenured male professors. When Miranda Miller submits her formal complaint to the Biology Department about Professor Marco Lindo trying to grab her (and showing her pornography) in his office, MoMo begins to realize that female victimization, including her own, has gone far enough. As Miranda's torment increases at the hands of yet another “smelly rooster,” Biology turns into an even worse snakepit than Sociology and MoMo finally teams with Miranda to “blow the lid off this place”. When every single one of the people paid to help students ignores Miranda's plight, MoMo and Miranda decide to go outside the hypocritical walls of State University and threaten these people from “the outside.”
Never in her life did MoMo Dini imagine the lengths to which people would stoop in order to cover their crimes. Never did she dream co-workers would ignore her and turn on her, that faculty would undermine her, that her own husband would disbelieve her--that even her children would question her! As she gradually slides into a total emotional breakdown, as the whole terrible mess closes in on her, she continues to e-mail Len Jenson her every thought and feeling about her horrible predicament in this most questionable, even dangerous, “workplace.”
The review of this Book prepared by Ruby Wilcox
