September 3 2009
Bentham Literary Residency Program
P.O. Box 1572
Bentham, ME 04976
Dear Committee Members,
Over the past twenty-odd years I’ve recommended god only knows how many talented candidates for the Bentham January residency – that enviable literary Oasis in the woods south of Skowhegan: the solitude, the pristine cabins, the artistic camaraderie, and those exquisite hand-delivered satchels of apples and cheese… Well you can scratch all prior nominees and pretenders from your mailing lists because none is as provocative or as promising as David Browles.
Julie Schumacher has been writing novels for years, but this is the first I have ever heard of her bizarrely. Dear Committee Members actually won the Thurber Prize for American Humour in 2015 and this marked a moment in history as Schumacher became the first woman to win this prize.
Dear Committee Members follows Jason Fitger, a professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University. It’s not very well known and the department is suffering cuts as well, as having to deal with the remodelling of the Economics department just one floor above them. He’s a sour man, his writing career has faded as have his hopes of romance after his last novel caused his wife to divorce him. However he has hope for some of his students to continue writing and this book focusses on his letters of recommendation for students to jobs as well as to writing retreats, and his letters to friends and co-workers. This novel takes place over a year in his life and sees the trials and tribulations of one man in academia.
Schumacher’s use of letters is the truly unique read. Every other novel I have read with letters has usually included both sides of a conversation. We can read one letter and then the reply. However, in this novel, we only ever read the letters from Fitger to the recipient. We then have to consider what their response would be to that letter before we read the next letter Fitger might send them.
Whilst many people could see this as a mishmash of stories all put into one novel, there are actually several interweaving subplots. For example, David Browles is a student on the graduate program, who Fitger really wants to see succeed, but he is struggling to fund his studies. The novel weaves in stories of this young man and his issues throughout in Fitger’s various letters of recommendation to places what he may be able to get some support.
The other subplot is Fitger’s romantic life. The tragedy that is his love life is one of the most endearing parts of this novel. His wife Janet works for the School of Law at Payne and he often sends letters of recommendation straight to her rather than through the “appropriate” channels. I think their relationship is incredibly sweet as they obviously still care enough about each other to want to be civil, despite him writing in detail the sexual encounters he had with women for his novel. They have two dates a year still, where they go and have dinner; one is their old wedding anniversary and the other is their divorce anniversary.
This is actually one of the few things that endears me to Fitger throughout. Overall, I find him to be a little bit of a stuffy character. It’s obvious to me that he has very high standards and hopes for all, and that he loathes writing letters of recommendation for things that are not relevant to his course matter, e.g. paint balling. But when it comes to those students who care enough to put in the effort in his classes he appears to fight for them to do as well as he knows they can. He seems like the type of professor I would enjoy being taught by in university.
Overall, Schumacher’s Dear Committee Members is a funny character study of a professor of creative writing through the letters of recommendation he writes. It is throughly engaging and an entertaining read compacted into less than 200 pages.
Total pages – 180 Total read time – 3 hours Rating /5 – 3 Recommend – for those in any form of academia wanting a little bit of joy. Advertisements Share this:
