DEAR COMMITTEE MEMBERS

by Julie Schumacher

This totally delightful, completely original, novel was recommended to me by my friend Jane.  I am quite sure that as  I detail its contents, it will sound peculiar at best.  But I promise you, there is a good reason why Dear Committee Members won the Thurber Prize for American Humor.

Schumacher sets the book at Payne University, a fictitious, liberal arts school in the Midwest. Our protagonist, Jason Fitger, is a professor of creative writing whose writing career is stalled and his personal life is in shambles.  The author reveals Fitger’s story to the reader entirely through a collection of letters of recommendation that he has written from the mountain of requests he continually receives from students and colleagues.  Through these letters, many of which are hilarious, we discover the source of his academic and personal troubles.  Payne’s Department of English is being downsized, students are less invested than ever in his subject and he rather unwisely chose his own wife and marriage as the inspiration for his novels.

As the reader moves through the novel, these themes thread through his letters of recommendation.  As he sings the praises of each letter’s subject, Fitger reveals his own biases, resentments and feelings of unfairness in such a clever, passive-aggressive manner, that you will find yourself chuckling out loud.  A perfect, mostly light summer read, I highly recommend Dear Committee Members.  It is a breath of fresh air. (Liz)

A SECOND HELPING

My mom gave me this one to read after I realized that none of my 2023 books had made me laugh out loud. And although I did find this book extremely clever and sometimes silly, I think I am too depressed about the state of academia at the moment to find it as funny as she did. (Lily)