Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Crichton, Michael (Vol. 90) - Geraldine Brennan (review date 30 January 1994)

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Geraldine Brennan (review date 30 January 1994)

SOURCE: "Tears Before Bed," in The Observer, January 30, 1994, p. 19.

[In the following unfavorable review of Disclosure, Brennan contends that the novel's plot is contrived and its sexual harassment theme contains misogynistic sentiments.]

Sexual harassment suits are about more than reputations: the scent of big money is in the air, making corporate America twitchy. Crichton has put his finger on the latest anxiety; if women and men are equal in the workplace, does a male subordinate's claim of sexual harassment by a woman employer carry the same weight as a woman employee's claim against a man?

One difference is that the harassed man's predicament qualifies as thriller material: Tom Sanders, a middle-manager in a computer company, has his trousers removed over a bottle of Chardonnay in the boss's suite. If she had groped him every day for three years behind the photocopier,...

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1. Introduction
2. ∗Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Pauline Kael (review date 9 November 1981)
   2. David Denby (review date 16 November 1981)
   3. Gary Jennings (review date 11 November 1990)
   4. Ronald Preston (review date 21 November 1990)
   5. J. P. Telotte (essay date 1990)
   6. Robert Nathan (review date 9 February 1992)
   7. Ian Buruma (review date 23 April 1992)
   8. Karl Taro Greenfeld (review date 11 May 1992)
   9. Julian Loose (review date 22 October 1992)
   10. Stephen Jay Gould (review date 12 August 1993)
   11. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review date 6 January 1994)
   12. John Schulian (review date 16 January 1994)
   13. Patt Morrison (review date 16 January 1994)
   14. Julie Burchill (review date 22 January 1994)
   15. Geraldine Brennan (review date 30 January 1994)
   16. Douglas Kennedy (review date 4 February 1994)
   17. Michael Coren (review date 21 February 1994)
   18. Francine Prose (review date October 1994)
   19. Publishers Weekly (review date 21 August 1995)
   20. Mark Annichiarico (review date 15 September 1995)
   21. Mim Udovitch (review date 1 October 1995)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright