The Bottom: a Moving Target

[Nancy]

On the plus side: I didn't have a "to-read" list before I took on the 2015 Reading Challenge and now I have one on steroids. On the minus side: this book was at the bottom for a few days toward the end of November, but then it was repeatedly displaced by other tomes of book-candy, and by the time I read it it had floated to the middle.

Tenured curmudgeon Jason Fitger is holding his head above water in the Engli_h Department at midwestern US Payne University, despite the department's unfortunate location in the rain-ridden basement of a building that is being refurbished for the ascendant Economics Department. (Undoubtedly the missing "s" in the department's sign was appropriated for Economics' use). He spends his days composing what he suspects are widely unread letters of recommendation and reference for students and colleagues seeking fellowships or sub-minimum wage jobs in the form of unpaid internships. The letters are little masterpieces of asperity. Between the lines they tell the story of his divorce, his failed post-divorce relationship and the decline of his alter ego.

So why would such a book win the 2015 Thurber Prize for American Humour? Because it's filled with hilariously mean-spirited descriptions ("spreadsheet-loving barbarians" being one of my favourites) and biting judgments (science professors who "wouldn't recognize a dependent clause if it bit them in the ass").

But this really is a wolf of a novel, despite its sheep's clothing as a series of letters. It's no less funny for being all-too-true of life in the non-profit humanities.

49 out of 50/52.