The Curve, co-authored by Harvard Law graduates Jeremy Blachman and Cameron Stracher, is a scathing satire of the contemporary law school paradigm. Set in the fictitious Manhattan Law School, aptly located on the borders of Brooklyn's polluted Gowanus Canal, the story exposes the dysfunctional interplay between a disconnected faculty and apathetic student body, for whom teaching and learning are of little or no interest. The most notable exception among the faculty is newbie professor, Adam Wright, a decent fellow who has fled the law firm grind for what he hopes to be a more rewarding career in academia. Wright soon discovers that almost none of his students has the interest or ability to become successful attorneys, and what's worse, that Manhattan Law School is so poorly regarded by employers that even the committed and successful students have no real chance of paying down their student loans. As if things couldn't get any more pathetic, Wright stumbles upon a scheme in which students are encouraged to bribe their way toward better grades and Law Review membership. The stakes rise when Wright is forced to choose between the path he knows is wrong, and a moral high road that runs the risk of his being blackballed by the administration and dumped by his beautiful colleague, Laura Stapleton.

The logistics of the law school's corrupt scheme push the bounds of the believable, but this is a satire after all, and the authors send a strong message about the need for reform in higher education. I especially enjoyed some of the witty observations targeted for a legal audience, the most memorable for me being that teaching a law student constitutional law is every bit as impractical from a career preparation standpoint as teaching a plumber's apprentice quantum physics. This novel is a must read for students considering whether to saddle themselves with law school loans, for those working in higher education, and for lawyers (and lawyer-haters) looking for a good laugh. ( )