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Part 1, Chapter 1

• Persse McGarrigle, a literature professor at a small university in Limerick, Ireland, is attending the annual conference for University teachers of English Language and Literature at a small university in the middle of England.

• The conference has only 57 attendees, most of them staying in the aging residence halls and eating practically inedible meals in the dining hall on campus; in addition, an unseasonable snow has fallen.

• Persse meets Dr. Rupert Sutcliffe, a professor at the hosting university who warned against holding the conference in such an isolated place; Sutcliffe is also resentful at having been passed over for Head of Department for Dr. Philip Swallow.

• Persse is then introduced to Professor Robin Dempsey, who relays his entire professional history as well a great deal of his personal story to Persse in one long narrative: he used to teach at the hosting university but after Swallow was...

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