01/27/2020
Jenkins’s enjoyable debut follows a film professor as she uncovers a sex scandal within a Southern university’s football program. Margolis Santos (“It’s pronounced Margo-lee,” she tells Ford, the naive community college student she’s sleeping with) teaches television and film at Athens University, where her estranged husband, Frank Sinoro, is the head football coach. When Stephanie, a Delta Delta Theta sorority member, is gang-raped by football players, Theta sister Emma begs Margolis to collaborate with her on a film about how the Thetas were paid to have sex with football recruits. At first Margolis refuses to rock the boat, but after she is fired over her relationship with Ford and her marriage ends, she has little to lose. As she and Emma work on the film, they discover that the corruption at Athens is linked to the highest levels of the university administration, and those seeking to stop Margolis’s investigation won’t hesitate to threaten her.
The author expertly develops Margolis’s character and shows her evolution from a self-absorbed snob into a sympathetic crusader for traumatized young women. Readers will appreciate Jenkins’s insightful view of the feelings experienced by the women in the sorority house as they come to terms with their reasons for accepting payment for sex (including unreasonably high tuition and sorority fees) and realize they have been victimized. The chilling rape scene is not overly explicit, but it clearly reveals the brutality of the assault and its devastating effects.
Jenkins frames scenes with film terms such as “fade in” and “we open on,” a gimmick that detracts from the flow of the story. Nuanced characterizations do much more to keep the reader hooked, including Emma’s conflicting feelings about her sexuality, Margolis’s determination to keep her teen daughter safe, and assistant coach Eggy chasing her ambition even when it comes at the expense of her morals. This is an engrossing, evenly paced drama about how a woman lost in her own world discovers a real sense of purpose in helping other women.
Takeaway: Suspense fans with an interest in current events will thrill to this riveting, insightful deep dive into corruption at an elite university.
Great for fans of Jodi Picoult, Chris Bohjalian.
Production grades Cover: A Design and typography: B Illustrations: - Editing: B Marketing copy: -
