The Dean's December By Saul Bellow - Penguin Modern Classics

Dean Corde is a man of position and authority at a Chicago university. He accompanies his wife to Bucharest where her mother, a celebrated figure, lies dying in a state hospital. As he tries to help her grapple with an unfeeling bureaucracy, news filters through to him of mounting problems left behind in Chicago. Corde is troubled: at home the centre is not holding firm, in Eastern Europe authority is cruel and dehumanizing.