Section 1 Summary

Zoe Hendricks is a history professor at Hillsdale-Versailles, a small, liberal arts college in the heart of rural Illinois. The opening paragraph mocks the very setting of the college, noting the odd of names of farm towns in Illinois, such as Oblong, Paris and Normal. Even the mentality of the townspeople are mocked by Zoe's comment that when a big story like the two-hundred-point drop in the New York Stock Exchange occurred, the headline of the local newspaper blurted, "Normal Man Marries Oblong Woman."

Zoe is teaching at this institution, because a previous sex-discrimination lawsuit had been filed against the university, and the placement of a female history professor erased the lawsuit's accusations. The male faculty members there enjoy having a female in the ranks, even though they notice Zoe's eccentricities, like singing in class and wearing enormous, wild earrings. Student evaluations remark...