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Summary
Summary
Finally a novel that puts the "pissed" back into "epistolary."
Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the midwest. His department is facing draconian cuts and squalid quarters, while one floor above them the Economics Department is getting lavishly remodeled offices. His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels. His star (he thinks) student can't catch a break with his brilliant (he thinks) work Accountant in a Bordello , based on Melville's Bartleby . In short, his life is a tale of woe, and the vehicle this droll and inventive novel uses to tell that tale is a series of hilarious letters of recommendation that Fitger is endlessly called upon by his students and colleagues to produce, each one of which is a small masterpiece of high dudgeon, low spirits, and passive-aggressive strategies. We recommend Dear Committee Members to you in the strongest possible terms.
Author Notes
Julie Schumacher received an undergraduate degree from Oberlin College and an MFA degree in fiction from Cornell University. She is a professor of English at the University of Minnesota. A short story she wrote while attending Oberlin College was reprinted in The Best American Short Stories. She is the author of several books for adults and younger readers including The Book of One Hundred Truths, The Chain Letter, Grass Angel, and Dear Committee Members.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Professor Jason Fitger, the hero of this engaging epistolary novel from Schumacher (The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls), is concerned about Darren Browles, a student of his currently at work on a novel. Fitger, who teaches creative writing at fictional Payne University in Maine, believes this book, when completed, will prove Browles to be a prodigy. Despite Fitger's near-ecstatic praise of the would-be novelist, both for writing positions and for any job available, no one seems interested in hiring Browles, not even the less-than-enterprising college radio station. In addition to this pet project, Fitger commits himself to writing recommendations for anyone that asks. However, he agrees to do so only on the condition of being completely frank, leading him to address the personal lives of his colleagues and students inappropriately. Additionally, Fitger delves into his own life with uncomfortable honesty, regardless of which person he's writing to, usually concerning the marriage-ending novel he wrote about his extramarital affairs and his distress over being a failed novelist. His letters become progressively more abrasive, to the point of insult. A creative writing professor himself, Schumacher crafts a suitably verbose but sympathetic voice for Fitger, a man who exudes both humor and heart. Agent: Lisa Bankoff, ICM Partners. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A disgruntled English professor pours out his hopes, affections and frustrations in an interconnected series of recommendation letters.In "The Gristmill of Praise," a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Schumacher (Creative Writing/University of Minnesota; The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls, 2012, etc.) revealed that in a single year, she receives more than 1,600 letters of recommendation and writes 50 to 100 of her own. This onslaught of praise inspired her to write a very funny epistolary novel composed of recommendation letters written by a caustic, frustrated and cautiously hopeful English professor named Jason Fitger. He's a former literary wunderkind who parodied his own writing teacher in a successful first novel called Stain 20 years ago and has since parlayed three unsuccessful follow-ups into a tenured position at a small liberal arts college. Over the course of 100 letters, we learn that waste water is leaking into Fitger's office from the construction of a glorious new economics center above the English department; that he's engaged in a losing battle of office politics with the administration; that he has a cordial but cold relationship with his ex-wife over in the law school; and that he's generally kind to most of his students, even the ones who are moving on from college to the local liquor store. His writing, meanwhile, is tremendously florid and mostly cynical: "Mr. Duffy Napp has just transmitted a nine-word email asking that I immediately send a letter of reference to your firm on his behalf; his request has summoned from the basement of my heart a star-spangled constellation of joy, so eager am I to see Mr. Napp well established at Maladin IT." Most of all, we learn that the failed novelist still has hope for the futureif not for himself, then for one of his students, Darren Browles, whom he's mentoring through a difficult first novel. It's an unusual form for comedy, but it works.Truth is stranger than fiction in this acid satire of the academic doldrums. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Beleaguered English professor Jason Fitger claims the only writing he has time for anymore is recommendation letters. Acquiescing to the demands of academia, Fitger produces an endless stream of correspondence. He writes letters championing graduate students for enviable residencies, letters supporting undergraduates applying for entry-level jobs, letters surreptitiously recommending colleagues for (dreaded) committee service, and letters to the administration complaining of its clear favoritism of the economics department. Returning to adult fiction after a stint writing for children, Schumacher (An Explanation for Chaos, 1997) presents a novel composed solely of these missives, revealing the story of an academic year through her narrator's one-sided correspondence. Fitger is sarcastic yet good-hearted and bemused at the absurdity of many of the letters he is asked to write. As he reaches out to colleagues and committees, including his absentee publisher and dean ex-wife, Fitger's letters become increasingly biographical, divulging his own sinking academic, literary, and romantic ambitions. Schumacher's warm satire of the peculiarities of the Ivory Tower will be recognizable to anyone who has encountered the bureaucracy and internal politics of higher education.--Bosch, Lindsay Copyright 2014 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
To all the creative writing teachers in the audience: Have you ever been tempted to turn your letters of recommendation into truth-telling sessions - not just about the mouthbreathers for whom you're writing the letters, but also about your cretinous bosses, your vengeful ex-spouses, your wounded current lovers, your dunderheaded literary agents? Hey, no, just wondering; me neither! Which is just as well, because our letters couldn't compete with the testimonials written by Jason T. Fitger, professor of creative writing at Payne University and the protagonist of Schumacher's terrific new novel. The book is hilarious: When Jay writes a letter for a former student seeking a supermarket job, he notes that the applicant once wrote a story "about an inebriated man who tumbles into a cave and surfaces from an alcoholic stupor to find that a tentacled monster - a sort of fanged and copiously salivating octopus, if memory serves - is gnawing through the flesh of his lower legs." At the end of the letter, Jay suggests the supermarket "might start him off in produce, rather than seafood or meats." But Schumacher also brilliantly uses the epistolary form to show Jay's desperation in the face of his crumbling university, career, life. In all this, her scabrous book reminds me of Sam Lipsyte's "Home Land," Richard Russo's "Straight Man" and Jincy Willett's "Winner of the National Book Award." If you didn't find those books funny, well, that means you're a corpse. But you're also, apparently, a corpse who reads, so there's hope for you yet. You should read "Dear Committee Members"; maybe it will bring you back to life. brock clarke's sixth book, the novel "The Happiest People in the World," will be published this month.
Library Journal Review
Jason Fitger, professor of English at a small liberal arts college, is experiencing the death of the humanities in higher education. While his colleagues in the "money making" departments have all the perks imaginable, his department has suffered budget cuts and staff eliminations. Fitger's own writing languishes in the face of relentless interruptions, from writing letters of recommendation for students to commenting on departmental activities to seeking work for his last remaining grad student. Also included in the story is his lively correspondence with his ex-wife and his ex-girlfriend, both of whom also work on campus. In his copious correspondence, he is not afraid to state his mind, even when it's not appropriate to do so. -VERDICT Sadly, Schumacher (The Body Is Water) has nailed the state of higher education exactly. She has done so with humor and wit, using this one-sided correspondence to tell a larger story. Readers of general fiction will enjoy this outrageous and hilarious book.-Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.