Disclosure

Disclosure is a novel by Michael Crichton, his ninth under his own name and nineteenth overall, and published in 1994. The novel is set at a fictional computer hardware manufacturing company. The plot concerns protagonist Tom Sanders and his struggle to prove that he was sexually harassed by his female employer. Summary Tom Sanders, the head of advanced products manufacturing at DigiCom, expects to be promoted to run the advanced products division after DigiCom's merger with a publishing house. Instead, the promotion is given to his ex-girlfriend, Meredith Johnson, who recently moved to Seattle from the company's headquarters in Cupertino, California. Later that day, Meredith calls Tom into her office, ostensibly to discuss an advanced CD-ROM drive. She aggressively tries to resume their relationship, despite Tom's repeated attempts to resist. When he spurns her sexual advances, Meredith angrily vows to make him pay. The next morning, Tom discovers that Meredith has retaliated by falsely accusing him of sexual harassment. DigiCom president Bob Garvin, fearing that the incident could jeopardize the merger, tells the company's general counsel, Phil Blackburn, to propose transferring Tom to the company's Austin facility. However, Tom's division is due to be spun off as a publicly traded company after the merger, and if he is transferred, he will lose stock options which would have made him a wealthy man. In addition, Tom's coworkers treat him with animosity, as they have believed Meredith's story.