Japanese by Spring

Chappie Puttbutt, a Black professor at the overwhelmingly white Jack London University, finds himself the head of his department and, drunk with power, sets out to settle old scores

By turns strident and wittily incisive, Reed's satire of academia takes on Eurocentrism, Japan-bashing, racism, black conservatives and antiporn feminists, among other targets. Benjamin ("Chappie") Puttbutt, a neoconservative black professor at a predominantly white college in nearby Oakland, Calif., opposes affirmative action and blames blacks for creating their own problems. Denied tenure, he fumes until his Japanese-language tutor, Dr. Yamato, becomes owner of the college and makes Puttbutt his right-hand man. Erstwhile "houseboy" Puttbutt takes sweet revenge on deconstructionists, feminists, traditionalists, neo-Nazis and other campus factions, but he is chagrined when chauvinistic Dr. Yamato imposes IQ tests devised in Japan, denounces whites as lazy coolies, orders campus security guards to beat up student dissidents and expels all American-born Chinese and Japanese students. Bizarre plot twists include Puttbutt's torrid romance with a murderous white professor's Japanese wife and the ouster of Dr. Yamato, who may have the backing of top-level U.S. government officials scheming to make him Japan's ruler. Gleefully portraying academia as the scene of vicious turf wars, Reed himself makes a cameo appearance here, tweaking Puttbutt and airing his views on the Los Angeles riots, arts censorship and the Persian Gulf war.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Born into a distinguished family of black military officers, Chappie Puttbutt becomes an English professor at racist Jack London University after he is expelled from the Air Force Academy. Although he seeks approval by attacking affirmative action and multiculturalism, he is still denied tenure in a department where many varieties of political correctness vie for control. Family and academic politics soon expand to the international realm when Puttbutt's Japanese-language tutor takes over the university and initiates a campaign to affirm Japanese cultural supremacy under a restored shogunate. Though Reed aims his satire primarily at academic follies and phobias, few forms of extremism escape his sharp wit. Still, he is an intrusive character in his own novel, at times letting his commentary overpower the richly comic narrative. Recommended for most collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/92.
- Albert Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.