02219cam a2200301 i 4500 771910930 TxAuBib 20230201120000.0 220815s2023||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2022037628 9780063240254 HRD 27.99 0063240254 HRD 27.99 TxAuBib rda Jha, Sonora, author. Laughter. The laughter [Book] : a novel / Sonora Jha. First HarperVia edition. New York, NY : HarperVia, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2023. x, 302 pages ; 24 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier "Dr. Oliver Harding, a tenured professor of English, is long settled into the routines of a divorced, aging academic. But his quiet, staid life is upended by his new colleague, Ruhaba Khan, a dynamic Pakistani Muslim law professor. Ruhaba unexpectedly ignites Oliver's long-dormant passions, a secret desire that quickly tips towards obsession after her teenaged nephew, Adil Alam, arrives from France to stay with her. Getting to know them, Oliver tries to reconcile his discomfort with the worlds from whichthey come, and to quiet his sense of dismay at the encroaching change they represent--both in background and in Ruhaba's spirited engagement with the student movements on campus. After protests break out on campus demanding diversity across the university, Harding finds himself and his beliefs under fire, even as his past reveals a picture more complicated than it seems. As Ruhaba seems attainable yet not, and as the women of his past taunt his memory, Harding reacts in ways shocking and devastating. An explosive, tense, and illuminating work of fiction, The Laughter is a fascinating portrait of privilege, radicalization, class, and modern academia that forces us to confront the assumptions we make, as both readers and as citizens"-- Provided by publisher. 20230310. College teachers Fiction. Campus fiction. Thrillers (Fiction.) Novels.