ADVANCE BOOK INFORMATION

PROT U

A Novel
by
Eva Augustin Rumpf

A university campus in Texas boils with intrigue
and conflict in this new satiric novel with
colorful characters, power struggles and plot twists.

Published July 2004__ISBN 1-59113-509-5

Paperback $13.95__ E-book $6.95

Order at http://www.booklocker.com/books/1646.html

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New novel satirizes life at Texas University

The editor of the student newspaper might not graduate if he prints stories slamming university officials. The incompetent president lets his secretary make all the decisions. An African-American assistant professor faces sexism and racism as she strives for tenure. Mexican immigrant workers on campus are exploited and teaching assistants are overworked, while football players are pampered.

Could all of these situations possibly exist at one university? At Prot U they do!

In Prot U, her first novel, Wisconsin author Eva Augustin Rumpf creates a satiric stew of colorful characters, power struggles and plot twists that simmer and boil over by the end of the novel. The book's title is the nickname for the fictional Protestant University of the South, located in the imaginary North Texas town of Stockville.

Just about everything is out of kilter at Prot U. The powerful chairman of the board, a Texas cattleman, bullies the board and the milquetoast president with his misguided plan to improve the university's image. The novel's reluctant hero, the editor of the campus paper, jeopardizes his future when he reveals the secret plan. His faculty adviser is conflicted when she realizes that supporting the students won't help her gain tenure. To this mix, Rumpf adds football fans, cheaters, connivers, gays, frat boys, a sex columnist, illegal immigrants, protesters, a corrupt city councilman, and the capricious Texas weather.

Prot U is published by Booklocker.com, Inc. A synopsis and ordering information can be found at http://www.booklocker.com/books/1646.html.

Ms. Rumpf is a freelance writer and a former reporter for the Milwaukee Journal. She has taught journalism and advised student media in Texas and Wisconsin. She has published hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, and several of her essays and articles have been syndicated nationally. Ms. Rumpf is co-author of Till Divorce Do Us Part, a self-help book for women in troubled marriages (Glenbridge Publishing, 1996). She lives in Milwaukee with her husband.

Praise for PROT U

"a fine first novel ... bright, entertaining satire ... "

"(Rumpf is) a master of exquisitely orchestrated chaos. PROT U is better than Gilbert and Sullivan."

"(Rumpf) keeps the pot boiling in a light and funny way, very much in the tradition of the English satirical novelist Tom Sharpe."

"Eva Rumpf's PROT U is wicked fun for all ... a quality comic tale ..."

"...the book subjects academia to a farcical viewpoint, offering campus life as a microcosm of the perennial clash between politics and social responsibility...At its core is a warm affection for the unsung heroes of our time, whose refusal to delegate individual responsibility to the corporate body always has its price."

Author Bio

Author Eva Augustin Rumpf is a freelance writer and a former reporter for the Milwaukee Journal. She has taught journalism and advised student media in Texas and Wisconsin. She has published hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, and several of her essays and articles have been syndicated nationally. Ms. Rumpf is co-author of Till Divorce Do Us Part, a self-help book for women in troubled marriages (Glenbridge Publishing, 1996).

She lives in Milwaukee with her husband. For more biographical information, click on About Eva.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

For a sample interview with the author, click on Author Interview.

CONTACT ME

evar@milwpc.com

REVIEWS

Intrigue, betrayal, academic style,
drive fine first novel Prot U,
by
Eva Augustin Rumpf
(Booklocker.com, Inc., 2004, 184 pp.)

As editor of the student newspaper, The Crimson Crusader, Mike Carter is hoping to stay out of trouble during his senior year so he can graduate at last from dear old Protestant University. But a campus-wide power struggle forces him and his faculty advisor, Angela Goodwin, to choose between safety and doing the right thing.

In Eva Augustin Rumpf's fine first novel, Prot U, a university campus in Texas boils with conflict, enveloping an incompetent president, a self-serving department chair, a corrupt board of trustees president, protesting teaching assistants, and illegal immigrants.

Will Mike graduate? Will his budding romance with Jenny Lofton blossom? Will Angela get tenure? Will cattle rancher Marlin Lynch succeed in subverting the university for football fame? Will Isabel Romero get deported? Will Mallory Moore pledge the sorority of her dreams? These and other questions will keep you turning the pages of this bright, entertaining satire.

You can download Prot U as an e-book for $6.95 or buy the paperback for $13.95 plus $4.95 s/h from www.booklocker.com/books/1646.html.

Eva Augustin Rumpf is a veteran of campus politics, Texas style. Now living in Milwaukee, she's the author of Till Divorce Do Us Part, a Practical Guide for Women in Troubled Marriages. She contributed a primer on rejection letters, "How to analyze rejection slips," to the last Creativity Connection.

Reviewed by Marshall J. Cook, Creativity Connection, October 2004

Prot U is a deceptively easy book to read – a bit like last generation's medical-center satire, "The House of God." The latter, once described as "Catch-22" with stethoscopes, employed dark humor to mount a devastating indictment of the way physicians were trained in the 1970s. The ambitions of  Prot U are not as large, but the book subjects academia to a similar farcical viewpoint, offering campus life as a microcosm of the perennial clash between politics and social responsibility.

For this reason, the book is fun to read simply as a short and well-paced novel about the colorful characters fictional Protestant U has brought together for a single academic season. However, the fact that the story is set in Texas allows the reader to infer a wry and subversive commentary on the corporate style of administration that emerged under the Bush governorship, and the difficulty of journalists to buck the system on which their livelihoods depended.

As a journalist herself who has worked in Texas, Rumpf knows this territory well, and she clearly enjoyed the opportunity to skewer some of the class and social roles that Texas culture appears to encourage. The book manages, however, to keep its humor light, skirting the mean-spiritedness of genuinely black comedy. At its core is a warm affection for the unsung heroes of our time, whose refusal to delegate individual responsibility to the corporate body always has its price.

Reviewed by Lenore Thomson Bentz, Midwest Book Review, December 2004.