SOURCE: A review of Moo, in Belles Lettres, Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter, 1996, p. 49.

In the following review, Toth offers reserved praise for Smiley's Moo.

Jane Smiley's ninth book [Moo] revels in wickedly satirical jabs at academia, specially as practiced at agricultural universities in the Midwest (Smiley teaches at Iowa State). We meet an earth-motherish language professor who is having a warmly secret affair with the pale provost—whose secretary, a closeted lesbian, pulls everyone's strings and especially likes slyly shifting money from the athletic budget to the library (I cheered).

Meanwhile, the provost's twin brother, a nasty agronomist, is seeking a vulnerable young woman with whom to produce six children, immediately and move to Eastern Europe to be role models for the downtrodden natives. He thinks he finds his Ms. Right ladling food in the school cafeteria—but she's finally disinclined to swallow what he dishes out.

Other characters...