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wrenreads2025 's review for:
Dear Committee Members
by Julie Schumacher
Oh, this book was painful yet mesmerizing to read. The book is a collection of letters written by a creative writing professor at a small university (Payne). He writes letters of recommendation for students, faculty, administrators and writers (published or not).
Because I worked for English departments for over 20 years, the absurdities of higher education, of the field of humanities, and the world of creative writing were all too familiar (such as the campus fracas over the use of a colon in a university document). I found the most absurd passages to ring the most true.
As we read a series of letters penned by Dr. Jason T. Fitger, we learn entirely too much about his self-serving trajectory from a young writer to a jaded tenured professor. Through background stories, digressions, queries to colleagues for favors and forgiveness. and footnotes (you MUST read the footnotes), we also learn about his haphazard love life and his many on-campus feuds. Nevertheless, I hold some affection for Jay. His deft use of language (albeit very self-serving) is admirable.
If offered the opportunity to socialize with the dean, the provost, the internship director, an economics professor or Jay, I would choose to dine with Jay. Now Schumacher needs to write one of Jay's fictitious novels. (I choose Stain, but Schumacher needs to reinsert the love scene conducted on manuscript pages.)
Because I worked for English departments for over 20 years, the absurdities of higher education, of the field of humanities, and the world of creative writing were all too familiar (such as the campus fracas over the use of a colon in a university document). I found the most absurd passages to ring the most true.
As we read a series of letters penned by Dr. Jason T. Fitger, we learn entirely too much about his self-serving trajectory from a young writer to a jaded tenured professor. Through background stories, digressions, queries to colleagues for favors and forgiveness. and footnotes (you MUST read the footnotes), we also learn about his haphazard love life and his many on-campus feuds. Nevertheless, I hold some affection for Jay. His deft use of language (albeit very self-serving) is admirable.
If offered the opportunity to socialize with the dean, the provost, the internship director, an economics professor or Jay, I would choose to dine with Jay. Now Schumacher needs to write one of Jay's fictitious novels. (I choose Stain, but Schumacher needs to reinsert the love scene conducted on manuscript pages.)