Mustang Sally: A Novel

By Edward Allen

Book Overview

Packard Schmidt is an appealing but seedy timeserver in the English department of a third-rate midwestern college. When his semester teaching the dismally undermotivated is done, Pack dashes off to Vegas--his favorite place on earth. There he runs into an ex-student-turned-call-girl, and his world falls apart. Author Edward Allen is an avid fan of game shows and casinos and the author of Straight Through the Night .

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393034038
• ISBN13: 9780393034035
• Release Date: October 1992
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 1.0" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Las Vegas laughing

There's no great need for me to summarize the plot, other reviewers having done a fine job, but I will jump on the bandwagon and implore you to search this one out. It appeals to my vanities, living in Las Vegas and hating contemporary theory in the study of literature, but this is still a damn funny book. The professor's voyage is a dark, nihlistic comedy out of tenured correctness that can make one cringe at times. As the cliche says, that which can happen, will, and our pessimistic narrator gets a boatload of instant karma. But still, there is the redemptive ending (sort of). The satirization of the academy is it's own sub-genre, and this is the best one I've read in awhile.

roaringly funny

This is truly one of the funniest books I've ever read. No wonder Ed Allen has had stories published in the New Yorker and GQ. Not to mention the prose, which is to bend sideways for. Even if you don't like gambling, prostitution, academics, and strippers, then you'll still like the book.

Politically incorrect -- and proud of it!

Edward Allen's Mustang Sally is uproariously funny! English Composition Professor Packard Schmidt, from the faculty of Amherst University (of Indiana) has two weaknesses: first, he likes gambling; and second, he has an eye for the ladies. On a gambling trip to Las Vegas, Fred is asked by a colleague to look up his daughter, who is a student at UNLV, but has of late become incommunicado. Fred finds Sally, who has changed careers and is now a state-licensed hooker at the Mustang Valley Inn. Fred finances his second problem, the Amherst administration finds out, Fred discovers that what he has done is considered very politically incorrect, and he is fired. His only hope is to find a job at the Modern Language Association annual convention -- in Atlantic City -- where he is asked to make a presentation on the "de-eroticization of love poetry". Fred's resulting talk -- featuring in-person input from certain Las Vegas businesswomen -- becomes the pinnacle of bad taste, bad judgment, and humor. In writing this book, Allen does more than tell a funny story. He clearly does not like the intellectual (and social) straightjacket which the doctrine of political correctness imposes upon college campuses. His point seems to be that childish (and arbitrary) rules are no fun at all, and cause adults to act like children. I'm sure this book (and my response to it) will make certain "P.C." types angry. So be it!

Hilarious and poignant

A hilarious read. Most contemporary novels don't spend too many years on my bookshelf but this one endures. Edward Allen is a talented wordsmith and I wish I could find more novels he has authored.