Nick Moran is an English literature PhD who cannot find a job. Even when he does, years later and after a second career as a hack Hollywood screenwriter falls apart, the department at a university in Auckland, New Zealand, turns out to be a hornet's nest of paranoia, arbitrary power, and guilt by association. When a consensual affair with a student leads to tabloid-style scandal and public disgrace, he convinces himself that the world is a kind...