A middle-aged Anglo professor becomes obsessed with an "Asian Lolita" on his campus. As her life fractures, his fortunes ironically rise. Advancing matters is a shadowy academic who augments his meager university income with forays into drug dealing and the flesh trade, involving teachers and students alike.Told as a self-help book for sufferers from a certain "syndrome," this darkly satirical novel explores romantic obsession, cultural collision, love (or a variant thereof), and the utterly absurd farce called academia.