First published 2014
Jason Fitger sits at his desk in the crumbling English department at Payne University, staring at another request for a recommendation letter. The creative writing professor watches the Economics Department get fancy new offices one floor above while his own department faces budget cuts and deteriorating conditions. His writing career has stalled. His romantic relationships have collapsed, partly because he mined his personal life for novel material. His favorite student keeps getting rejected despite what Fitger considers brilliant work on a novel called Accountant in a Bordello, inspired by Melville's Bartleby. Through each letter of recommendation he writes for students and colleagues, Fitger reveals his frustrations, disappointments, and barely contained anger at the state of academia and his own life. These letters become his outlet for wit, complaint, and surprisingly honest reflection on failure and persistence in a world that seems increasingly hostile to literature and learning.
Genres: satire, literary-fiction, american-fiction, contemporary, academic
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking, witty
Tropes: epistolary, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Payne University
Period: 21st-century
181 pages · Hardcover · Doubleday