Leland Edwards, a piano-playing fisherman and English professor, has become dean of Rookery State College in Minnesota. With this title comes the daunting task of saving his beloved campus from diminished enrollment, hockey thuggery, and its ignoble associations with Paul Bunyan. So when the most famous poet in America agrees to come to Rookery, Leland hopes that his reading will put Rookery State on the literary map. But when he arrives, the poet is more and less than what Leland expected--and their relationship leads Leland on a wild ride that will compel him to harbor a fugitive, stand up to his domineering mother, and finally make peace with his brief attempt at love and the tragedy that ensued. . . .