The Devil and Webster
From the New York Times bestselling author of You Should Have Known and Admission, a twisty new novel about a college president, a baffling student protest, and some of the most hot-button issues on today's college campuses.
Naomi Roth is the first female president of Webster College, a once conservative school now known for producing fired-up, progressive graduates. So Naomi isn't surprised or unduly alarmed when Webster students begin the fall semester with an outdoor encampment around "The Stump"-a traditional campus gathering place for generations of student activists-to protest a popular professor's denial of tenure. A former student radical herself, Naomi admires the protestors' passion, especially when her own daughter, Hannah, joins their ranks.
Then Omar Khayal, a charismatic Palestinian student with a devastating personal history, emerges as the group's leader, and the demonstration begins to consume Naomi's life, destabilizing Webster College from the inside out. As the crisis slips beyond her control, Naomi must take increasingly desperate measures to protect her friends, colleagues, and family from an unknowable adversary.
Touching on some of the most topical and controversial concerns at the heart of our society, this riveting novel examines the fragility that lies behind who we think we are-and what we think we believe.
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Jean Hanff Korelitz
Jean Hanff Korelitz has built a reputation as a writer who knows how to draw readers into the uneasy space between truth and deception, where ambition collides with morality and secrets refuse to stay buried. Her novels often unfold like literary puzzles, inviting readers to question not just her characters’ choices but their own assumptions about storytelling itself.
Born and raised in New York, Korelitz studied at Dartmouth College and Clare College, Cambridge, before settling into a career that bridges both literary and popular fiction. While she has written across genres, her breakout novel The Plot brought her widespread recognition in 2021. The book followed a struggling writer who takes a student’s idea and spins it into a bestselling novel, only to find himself haunted by accusations of theft. Its success introduced many readers to her sharp eye for character and her ability to turn the act of writing itself into a suspense story.
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