Tom Sharpe

This title involves left-wing academics, right-wing capitalists, true-blue country gentry, workers, peasants, police and lawyers.

Porterhouse is a backwoods institution which is supported by fee-paying students who buy their degrees. Sir Godber Evans, the new Master, is determined to make radical changes, provoking the wrath of the Dean, the Senior Tutor and, most intransigent of all, Skullion the Head Porter.

When a doyenne of South African white society reveals she has killed her black cook - who was also her lover - Kommandant van Heerden, the new police chief, does all within his misguided power to stop the news leaking out, and to thwart a fashionable trend for taking black lovers.

Sir Giles, an MP of few principles, decides to build a motorway through a particularly picturesque piece of England, but he has reckoned without his wife, Lady Maude, and her enigmatic gardener, Blott. From the author of ANCESTRAL VICES, THE MIDDEN and WILT.

Henry Wilt ist Hilfslehrer an einer Berufsschule auf dem platten Lande, beruflich und im Eheleben tritt er auf der Stelle. Der Mittdreißiger hat es seit zehn Jahren mit künftigen Gasinstallateuren, Maurern und Fleischern zu tun, denen er die hohe Literatur näher bringen soll. Daheim erwartet ihn seine Frau Eva, sexuell unbefriedigt und schnell für alle möglichen modischen Ersatzbeschäftigungen zu begeistern: Judo, Töpfern, Meditation. Schließlich, an einem ihrer erträglicheren Tage und durch nie zuvor gehörte Libertinage-Phrasen aufgestachelt, ist sie fest entschlossen zur Emanzipation von ihrem Gatten und lustlosen Bettmuffel. Dass dies Wilt zum Äußersten treibt, ist nur allzu verständlich. Der Pechvogel probt den Aufstand und Mord an einer Sexpuppe, aber das hat äußerst peinliche Nebenwirkungen...

A South African woman struggles to convince the police that she has murdered her black cook

Kommandant van Heerden, the chief of police of Piemburg, terrorizes true Englishmen and even truer Zulus in his search for a perfect South Africa, while Luitenant Verkramp and Dr. von Blimenstein try to use aversion therapy to enforce chastity

The basis of a PBS miniseries, Porterhouse Blue confirms that Tom Sharpe is "an excellent writer and absolutely hilarious. His characterizations are deft, his plots are brilliant, and his prose style is smooth and winning" (P. J. O'Rourke). To Porterhouse College-bastion of a formidable crew team, lavish dining hall and wine cellar, and laughable academic standards-comes a crusading new Master. Porterhouse alumni believe in manly sports, the royal family, and brandy in the library with a fervor they bring to few intellectual positions. And the college upholds a long tradition of granting degrees to a certain number of muttonheaded young gentlemen of enviable pedigree and adequate family contribution to the school's treasury. The new Master, afire with liberal zeal, upsets everyone's digestion with a speech outlining plans to do things that simply aren't done: the admission of women, a cafeteria to replace the revered service of the kitchens, and contraceptive dispensers in every bathroom. The shock of the new and modern rattles even the college retainers. The head porter, Skullion, perhaps the staunchest supporter of the old way, rallies some powerful graduates to the cause, including the illustrious Canon Bowel and the madly wealthy-and plain mad-Sir Cathcart D'Eath. Their counterrevolutionary efforts result, among other peculiar events, in the most bizarre disaster seen at Cambridge in five hundred years, and in an escalation of threats, bluffs, and maneuvers to shame the shadiest of politicians. And the production of an investigative documentary on the strange doings at Porterhouse precipitates scandal of the highest order and an utterly unforeseeable conclusion.