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.
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“Schumacher has written an academic
comedy of manners in the grand tradition of Lucky
Jim, Moo, and Straight Man. Robertson Dean narrates
masterfully…Robertson Dean does a wonderful rendition of the aging English
professor who is trapped literally in a building under construction and
figuratively by his romantic and professional missteps over two decades. As he
should, Dean leaves the listener guessing about Professor Fitger’s real
feelings towards the denizens of Payne University as his life emerges through a
torrent of LORs.”
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