-beyond the pale-

For thirty years, J.D. Nochpynne's dense 1000-page masterpiece novel, Pale Queen of Night has set literary scholars at each other's throats, debating what it really means. The author is so thoroughly reclusive that no one knows his or her gender or ethnicity or whether 'Nochpynne' is a pen name. Professors Aldridge Bullock, Candace De Luna, and Ed Fertig, founders of the Society of American Nochpynne Scholars (SANS), have organized an academic conference to settle the many arguments, including whether this landmark novel is a progressive critique of white male hegemony or a conservative critique of political correctness.

 

Whenever 13th year grad student Sasha Plotzkin has trouble writing his doctoral thesis on Pale Queen of Night, he likes to dress like the novel's foppish main character Wolfgang Doppler and do reenactments. Sasha's lack of progress on his thesis has him on the brink of a nervous breakdown and expulsion from Hampford College. As Sasha sees it, his one chance at redeeming his academic career lies in making a name for himself at the SANS conference-to which he has not been invited. It's do-or-die time, and the deluded, paranoiac Sasha will stop at nothing to prove to the Nochpynne scholarly community the brilliance of the analysis in his dissertation-assuming he ever gets around to writing it.

 

Will the distraction of Sasha's rowdy undergraduate roommates prevent him from finishing his thesis? Will Sasha's ruse impersonating a lecturer at Midwestern University gain him a spot in the conference or will it backfire? Can his smitten student Anna convince him that their love isn't wrong? Or that love is worth his attention at all? Will the hostility between conference organizers Bullock, Fertig and De Luna work against Sasha or can he play them against each other? Will Sasha end up on the scrap heap of former professional students or can he fulfill his dream and find himself a perch in the ivory tower?