The Cutting Edge

The Cutting Edge is a novel of powerful imagination, rollicking humour, profound insight and deep political commitment. The novel is divided into two parts. The first is The College Essays of Jenny Delight. No one is quite sure who Jenny is. It is an obvious pseudonym since there is no student by this name at the college she attends. It is a hilarious section laced with social and personal insight as Jenny tries to understand the world around her, often using categories she's learning, sometimes the most abstract categories available, and infusing them with vivid meaning. The second section, Bill of Sale, is the posthumously-discovered manuscript of Sociology Professor Fred Snyder. It is a harrowing account of very vulnerable and often screwed-up people who are totally against their society. It is a section revealing, with extraordinary power, the ruthlessness of contemporary capitalism and its relentless destructive force. The Cutting Edge is one hell of a book! -Robert Roth, author of Health Proxy At once funny and dead serious, The Cutting Edge tells it like it is about the situation of public higher education in the early 21st-century United States. Sociology professor Fred Snyder-nostalgic for the era of Marcuse and the New Left, eternally at war with the college administration, committed to the ethical and political development of his students-is a wonderful creation. Skillfully narrated from several overlapping points of view, this satirical novel cuts to the chase in its astute portrayal of the connections between contemporary capitalism and the working-class college experience. -Barbara Foley, Rutgers University