Julie Schumacher. (2014). Dear Committee Members: A novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Julie Schumacher. 2014. Dear Committee Members: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Julie Schumacher, Dear Committee Members: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.

Julie Schumacher. Dear Committee Members: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.

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1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Schumacher, Julie
   • bioText: JULIE SCHUMACHER grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and graduated from Oberlin College and Cornell University. Her first novel, The Body Is Water, was published by Soho Press in 1995 and was an ALA Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her other books include a short story collection, An Explanation for Chaos, and five books for younger readers. She lives in St. Paul and is a faculty member in the Creative Writing Program and the Department of English at the University of Minnesota.
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“Like Richard Russo’s Straight Man this book has a lot to say about the humanities in American colleges and universities…. Very funny and also moving.” —Tom Perrotta, New York Post
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR and Boston Globe
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.
Don’t miss Julie Schumacher's new novel, The English Experience, coming soon.

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1. • premium: False
   • source: , New York Post
   • content: "If you like academic satires, you'll love this novel, which is written as a series of recommendation letters by a cranky, long-suffering English professor. Like Richard Russo's Straight Man this book has a lot to say about the humanities in American colleges and universities. It's very funny and also moving."--Tom Perrotta "In My Library"
2. • premium: False
   • source: Jon Michaud, The New Yorker
   • content: "For that reason, I entreat you, now that you've reviewed my précis, to read Ms. Schumacher's book. It is easily consumed in small pieces, like a tray of sweets and savories. It is ideal for passing the time between innings of a baseball game, waiting for a long red light to change, or sitting in a warm bath. As for Jason Fitger, I implore you to take a leap of faith and offer him admission to your next available residency. The worlds of business and academia will be poorer for lack of his letters, but perhaps, with your support, he can find a way to channel his energy and inventiveness into a new novel--one that will hopefully be as entertaining and as sharply written as Julie Schumacher's Dear Committee Members."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Brock Clarke, The New York Times Book Review
   • content: "The book is hilarious... [Schumacher's] 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."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
   • content: "...Bitterly hilarious. If you are looking for a witty, original cri de coeur over the oft-lamented decline of the humanities, I urgently recommend this novel."
5. • premium: False
   • source: The Rumpus
   • content: "Julie Schumacher's Dear Committee Members is the best sort of novel: the laugh-out-loud page-turner that also bleeds and breathes, the satire you want to quote to friends, the book that lets you in on the joke so you can better see the truth of the world."
6. • premium: False
   • source: San Francisco Chronicle
   • content: "[A] richly sardonic epistolary volume."
7. • premium: False
   • source: The Boston Globe
   • content: "The beauty of Dear Committee Members is that Fitger is not just an eloquent professor with a poison pen. He's previously alienated quite a few of the people whose favor he attempts to curry here, his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend included, and he has a habit of compounding the insults anew with each communication. But for all his corrosiveness, he's actually one of the good guys: a generous defender of gifted students, underappreciated colleagues, and fine scholarship. He's a romantic, really, a champion of academia. And he does love being a writer, 'which, despite its horrors, is possibly one of the few sorts of lives worth living at all.'"
8. • premium: False
   • source: Minneapolis Star Tribune
   • content: "Each letter Fitger writes is imbued with the wisdom and comic chops that make Schumacher a wonderfully entertaining writer. Let this review serve as an LOR for Dear Committee Members. If there's one thing new grads need in addition to the congratulatory check or gift card, it's a few good laughs before reality sets in."
9. • premium: False
   • source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
   • content: "If Fitger wrote only sarcastic letters, that would be one thing, but in this short tome a man appears between the zingers... Be sure to tag this book with 'for fans of David Foster Wallace.'"
10. • premium: False
    • source: The Iowa Gazette
    • content: "Lest you conclude I am merely impressed by a humorous, well-handled gimmick, let me assure you that Ms. Schumacher brilliantly lays bare the tale of Fitger's stalled career, failed love life, and quixotic championing of a student and his unfinished novel. "Dear Committee Members" ends with a blend of sadness and quiet hope that I did not anticipate, but found wholly satisfying.In short, I recommend Dear Committee Members without hesitation or caveat."
11. • premium: False
    • source: Houston Chronicle
    • content: "...A hilarious and surprisingly poignant pleasure to read."
12. • premium: False
    • source: The Wichita Eagle
    • content: "Schumacher's satire of the petty rivalries, byzantine hierarchies and committee meetings is spot on--scathing and laugh-out-loud funny."
13. • premium: False
    • source: Santa Fe New Mexican
    • content: "As back-to-school entertainment, Dear Committee Members hits the spot."
14. • premium: False
    • source: Kirkus Reviews
    • content: "[A] very funny epistolary novel composed of recommendation letters... It's an unusual
15. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      June 9, 2014
      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, 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 herself, Schumacher crafts a suitably verbose but sympathetic voice for Fitger, a man who exudes both humor and heart. Agent: Lisa Bankoff, ICM Partners.

16. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      June 1, 2014
      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 future-if 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(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

17. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      July 1, 2014
      

      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

      Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

18. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      August 1, 2014
      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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

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“Like Richard Russo’s Straight Man this book has a lot to say about the humanities in American colleges and universities…. Very funny and also moving.” —Tom Perrotta, New York Post
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR and Boston Globe
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.
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