The Dean's December

Albert Corde, dean of a Chicago college, is unprepared for the violent response to his scathing articles on city corruption and his involvement in the trial of two black people charged with killing a white student. He finds himself accused of being a civic-minded fool and a racist. Journeying to Bucharest, where his mother-in-law lies dying, Corde compares the corruption and inhumanity of Communism with the rotting, domed cityscapes of Chicago. As December draws to a close and events – public and intimate – come to a head in both cities, Corde vents his fury at the mayhem and carnage of the modern world.