Have you ever asked someone to write a letter of recommendation? Maybe a favorite teacher or neighbor when you wanted a job or a scholarship? Have you ever wondered just what they said about you?
Wonder no more. Instead read Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher. The author tells the story of Jay Fitger, Professor of English at a small college in his own words, via letters of recommendation, complaints to the HR department, emails to his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend, letters to friends.
Professor Fitger has much to complain about. His English department faces severe budget cuts, whacking the English graduate program, living in 3rd rate offices, with a department head borrowed from Sociology. Fitger wants his current students to survive and thrive and worries about one in particular, Darren Browles.
Mr. Browles wrote a novel, or at least part of a novel, we aren’t really sure. Although Browles never appears in the book, Fitger writes letter after letter – to his former friends, his ex-wife, his publisher, his agent – in short anyone he can think of who might bring this pseudo-masterpiece to print, or if nothing else, provide Browles with a few bucks.
Meanwhile Fitger’s other students are moving into corporate jobs or temporary work at liquor stores and trailer parks, going on to grad school, selling novels. We see them all. Only Browles remains, left behind, unwanted.
Characterization
Professor Fitger is the star of course and we learn much about him. He’s in his mid/late 40s, balding, a bit fussy, a bit bitter, sarcastic, with distant memories of being just a bit more radical, a bit more successful. He’s also lonely and prone to sabotage himself and any relationships.
He writes his letters with as much honesty and kindness as the student deserves. One girl was desperate for a letter and her advisor was gone so she turned to Fitger whom she had seen around campus – after all he was in the building and almost no one else was. Fitger wrote a charming letter, praising the student’s enterprise and determination while accurately describing how he was roped into writing the recommendation.
The book is full of funny comments like these, interspersed with heartfelt pleas to help Browles and to his ex-wife and girlfriend to please like him again. We don’t see Fitger in his home, only his office, while he reminiscenses about his mistakes, how he included too much reality in his one successful novel, so much that his wife could not tell what parts were fiction and dumped him. He remains on good terms with people right until he can’t help but do something to sabotage the friendship, for example, copying the entire university staff on an email to his girlfriend.
The setting is mostly inside Fitger’s mind with sharp descriptions of the falling-down academic building with its non-working plumbing. We get a glimpse of cutthroat academic life where all new hires are non-tenure track adjuncts who live on air, pennies and dreams. Fitger remembers it didn’t use to be like that and it drives him to write scathing letters to the dean.
I think I would like Fitger in small doses, preferably with a glass of wine.
Summary
Dear Committee Members is funny, poignant. I recommend it to you without reservation!
5 Stars
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