Dear Committee Members: A novel

by Julie Schumacher

  Though he appears not to have mentioned it on his résumé, Troy Larpenteur published a brilliant lyrical novella called Second Mind, which was showered with praise but underappreciated, as are many pathbreaking works; it is now out of print. Subsequently he labored for the better part of a decade on his magnum opus, a novel, which was lost along with his pregnant wife when the cabin lent to them by a friend, a cabin in which they were taking a long-awaited vacation, was struck by lightning during a storm. The randomness of his wife Navia’s death—the vacation had been urged upon them; Troy had driven to the store for supplies before the storm’s scheduled arrival; the car got a flat tire and Troy stumbled back down the flooded road to find the cabin in flames—defeated his belief in art and quelled his aspirations. He never returned to the novel. He moved to India, where Navia had spent her early childhood, and wiped himself off the grid for a dozen years.

  You may be searching this letter for references to Troy’s “relevant experience.” (Troy asked me to limit myself in this recommendation to the qualities and attributes that will make him an asset to your firm.) Let me suggest that, no matter the variety of employment, there is nothing more relevant or crucial than an aptitude for original thought and imaginative expression. When I think back twenty-three years to the sight of Troy across from me at the Seminar table, his hair looking as if he had slept on the floor of the library by the vending machines (he usually had), his face alight with intelligence and anticipation, I believe the best years of my life will be the ones in which I had the privilege of hearing him read his work aloud to our group. Even HRH—Professor Hanf—fell silent when Troy slid his pages from the battered portmanteau in which he liked to keep his writing; we waited on tenterhooks, knowing that whatever Troy read would alter something within us, changing the way in which we understood language and its cumulative power, the way it made our lives feel capacious, infusing us each week during our three- or four-hour-long sessions with the sensation that we were at long last about to apprehend … what? Unlike many of his peers, myself included, Troy was free of egoism. He cared about his work, and others’ work, as opposed to “success.” He was, and remains, an intellectually nimble, brilliant, generous man.

  I understand that Troy has applied for the position of sales associate. This is a foreign concept to me: here in the academy we are unaccustomed to salesmanship of any kind, even to the faintest of efforts to make ourselves presentable or attractive to others. Nevertheless I can readily attest to Troy Larpenteur’s seriousness, his quick intelligence, and his kindness. He is not gregarious—I do not envision him cracking jokes by the water cooler—but he is a man of great integrity and depth.

  Forgive the meanderings in what should have been a more businesslike letter. (Blaise Pascal: I apologize that my letter is so long; I lacked the time to make it shorter.) I have written more than 1,300 letters of recommendation (I keep precise records), and were it possible I would assemble the many laudatory phrases from this bloated collection and apply them like a poultice to Troy Larpenteur’s pain.

  Of course I have failed to do here what he asked of me: I seldom lived up to his example. For reasons I won’t bother to go into now, Troy might once have harbored an unfavorable opinion of me, but he is too generous. I will be forever in his debt.

  Please hire this exceptional man, whose many fine qualities must surely find an appreciative home in your corporation.

  Sincerely,

  Jason T. Fitger

  Professor of Creative Writing and English

  Author, Stain; Alphabetical Stars; Save Me for Later; and Transfer of Affection

  November 23, 2009

  Carole Samarkind, Associate Director

  Student Services/Fellowship Office

  14 Gilbert Hall

  Dear Carole—and Relevant Committee Members,

  Pa Vang has requested that I support her application to Payne’s Students of Distinction Fellowship Fund. A cursory glance at her transcript, with its tidy, monotonous fishing line of A’s, should suffice to recommend her. All I have to add is that she is as bright in person as she is on paper; she has not accumulated her perfect scores by fraudulent or suspicious means; and she appears to be a pleasant human being. (I am of the opinion that pleasantness is immaterial, but I am aware of brilliant but “difficult” students who have been denied funds.)

  Ms. Vang is not difficult. She is ambitious and diligent, a sophomore literature major with—may god offer her succor—a desire to become a professor of Engli_h.

  The VP’s hectoring campaign about our paucity of resources continues, but you and I know that for students like Vang, the money is out there. Tell Sidney to open his purse strings and cough up the funds.

  Carole: I’m still hoping you’ll agree to have lunch with me—nothing formal or off-campus if you aren’t comfortable yet with the idea. But maybe I could swing by your office with that artichoke salad you used to favor?

  JTF

  P.S.: I heard about the altercation at the diversity committee meeting, and I understand that my name was invoked. Didn’t I warn you about sitting near Janet? Did she take you on her favorite fault-finding tour through Transfer of Affection?

  November 24, 2009

  Confidential Reference for WJRX17794 Cynthia Goldberg Please complete the following to the best of your knowledge:

  1. How long and in what capacity have you known the applicant?

  Greetings, committee members. I have known Ms. Goldberg for almost three years. She was my student in two undergraduate classes: the twentieth-century American survey, which begins with

  2. Give a brief description of the applicant’s aptitude and/or past performance.

  Ms. Goldberg received a B+ in the chaotic welter of the survey, an introductory course designed by the university to function as part academic lecture, part flash mob, because of the unrestricted and steadily rising numbers of enrolled students, 10 percent of whom failed due to ennui or inebriation (the class met at 8:00 a.m.) and subsequently faded back into the larger undifferentiated ooze of the campus. In the short story class she received a B-, perhaps unfairly. The size of the group

  3. Do you know of any reasons why the applicant should not be given responsibility as stated on the list of qualifications above?

  First, I’ll finish my response to question #2—your blasted form cut me off. The survey class enrolled seventy-five undergraduates, many of whom signed up because of my reputation for Sturm und Drang; bored by the material—that is, books—they nonetheless enjoy watching me pull at what remains of my hair while I stamp back and forth in paroxysms of incredulity caused by the half-baked ideas casually lobbed in my direction from the back of the room. Not granted a teaching assistant to help with the evaluation of essays, I was forced to require inclass exams rather than allow the students to draft and revise their work in the quiet sanctity of their dorm rooms. In an ideal world, I would outlaw literature exams entirely; I would also eschew the twin barbarities of “attendance” and “participation” as grading criteria, necessitated by workload increase. Ms. Goldberg

  4. Are there any other comments you would like to add?

  Yes: I would like to finish my fucking sentences. I suppose your organization is to be commended for not resorting to the absurd array of little black boxes in which recommenders like me are asked to rate applicants according to [ ] likelihood of earning a Nobel Prize, [ ] personal hygiene, [ ] ability to form coherent sentences not randomly punctuated by “like” or “really” or other verbal fluff, but given that your damnable form has cut me off every time I initiate a

  5. Thank you!

  November 25, 2009

  Neologisms Conference Committee

  Denwood University

  42A Roosevelt Hall

  Denwood, NC 28078

  Attention: Harold Duvlavsky

  Dear Harold:

  Ms. Rowena Handel has recently submitted a proposal to your Neologisms Conference—a proposal, she now belatedly understands, that was to
be accompanied by a letter of reference.

  Ms. Handel is neither my advisee nor my student: she pinned me down outside the men’s room—conveniently adjacent to my office, so that my writing and research are invariably conducted to the flushing of waste—and, with the anxious desperation for which PhD candidates are justifiably known, trailed behind me into my office, installed herself in the red vinyl chair that has cradled the backsides of thousands, and insisted I listen to a frantic rendition of her proposal for the purposes of writing, on her behalf, this exalted document.

  It is 2:00 p.m., tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and here in my office the snow is accreting in small picturesque clumps against the ill-fitting window, which rattles in its Dickensian casement. The other faculty, including Ms. Handel’s advisors, have retreated like whack-a-moles into obscure campus locales or left town on vacation. Divorced, somewhat recently spurned, and therefore doomed to spend the holiday with two vegetarians from the Classics Department, I was apparently the only living member of the faculty the unfortunate Ms. Handel was able to find. That said: her proposal—entirely outside my field—appears to have merit. In particular, her examination of inventive phrases related to issues of gender identity—though of no interest to me—is probably worth sharing with a collegiate audience.

  Note: My magnanimity and spirit of service will not extend so far as to persuade me to submit to your online recommendation, despite Ms. Handel’s willingness to enlighten me as to its mysteries or to prostrate herself on my linoleum floor. True, her proposal’s endorsement will be delayed until next week, but Thanksgiving—though tainted with oppression and bloodshed—is a national holiday, and your request for an LOR specifies only a date of submission, not receipt. Therefore by 3:20 p.m. this letter will be deposited in the quaint rectangular mouth of the blue mailbox, now quite sparkling and emphatic in the new-fallen snow; and I presume you will note the date of its postmark. Ms. Handel clawed repeatedly at her arms when I mentioned the mailbox (she asked if I had considered using the Pony Express), but, in the absence of an alternative mutually agreed-upon plan, she acquiesced.

  Wishing you a scintillating conference,

  Jay Fitger, Professor, Recommender-for-Hire

  Payne University

  P.S.: Harold—I saw your name on the list of Bentham advisory board members. While I don’t doubt your qualifications or your caliber as a scholar, I was under the impression that Bentham advisors (and obviously residents) were to be literary artists rather than academicians. Has that policy changed? Eleanor Acton—the new director—and I are long-ago classmates and onetime friends, and I’ve sent her several recommendations on behalf of a student novelist, Darren Browles, but have received no positive reply. Now I’m wondering if Eleanor’s years in the corporate world have warped her—and if any promising writer I might recommend to Bentham will, in favor of scholars regurgitating rancid tidbits of Derrida or Cixous, be turned away. Would you put in a good word for Browles? And: any insight—confidential of course—that you could provide on a possible seismic shift in Bentham’s raison d’être would be most appreciated.

  December 2, 2009

  Catfish Catering

  790 South Campus Boulevard

  Rana Abdul, General Manager

  Dear Ms. Abdul,

  Seth Padoman has asked that I serve as a reference vis-à-vis his bid to secure an entry-level job in your catering establishment.

  Let me be candid: the job market for young employment seekers is abysmal; otherwise, Mr. Padoman, who graduated with a BA in English last spring, would set his sights considerably higher. When last I spoke with him he was sheepishly dejected and confessed to living on microwaved food in his sister’s basement; I advised him to man up, polish his résumé, marshal his references (including mine), and retain an optimistic façade.

  Still. Catfish Catering—all too familiar to those of us immured in the culinary universe of inexpensive university-sanctioned cuisine—is one of the most gruesome sources of provender on the planet. Oil (god only knows whether you’re using K-Y Jelly, lard, or some less well recognized lubricant) appears to be your primary ingredient regardless of the category of food. Last year at the banquet honoring the installation of our new provost, I made the mistake (yes, it was my error, I admit it) of consuming a modest portion of tilapia from the groaning board; I was ill for three days. Substances I would never knowingly introduce to my body had apparently proliferated within it and were then rapidly expelled in unspeakable gouts. I counted myself fortunate, at the end of a week of gastrointestinal crisis, to be able to walk.

  Seth Padoman is a bright-eyed, well-intentioned young man: not the most accomplished among recent clusters (in class he was perhaps best known as the author of a sci-fi tale about a mutant clan of gun-wielding arachnids that assumed control of a cocaine factory in Mexico), but eager and ambitious. He deserves a future, and therefore I recommend him to you on the condition that you not allow him to consume any foodstuffs produced by your place of business.

  Yours in digestive health,

  J. T. Fitger

  Professor, Department of English

  December 7, 2009

  Student Services/Fellowship Office

  Carole “The Beneficent” Samarkind, Associate Director

  14 Gilbert Hall

  Carole:

  Let this humble communiqué serve as my recommendation for Lee Rosenthal: the poor kid tells me he has applied for a spring semester job in your office. He can read and write; he’s not unsightly; and he doesn’t appear to be addicted to illegal substances prior to 3:00 p.m. Set him to work typing something. He finished the first half of my Junior/Senior Creative Writing Workshop with a B+ and is currently laboring away on a final short story—prescient soul—about a college graduate who lands a meaningless entry-level position in his father’s law firm, compromising his iconoclastic ideals and ambitions to make some cold hard cash.

  Which reminds me: I heard what I sincerely hope was a scurrilous rumor to the effect that you are searching for work outside the velvet bonds of our institution. Be honest with me: Did Janet say something truly objectionable at the diversity committee meeting? (At an all-campus congress just before we divorced, she actually read aloud from Transfer of Affection, as if the novel itself were some sort of indictment. I admit to weaving with the threads of real life on my loom, in Transfer and especially in Stain;* but the fictional, philandering George Fitzgerald in those books isn’t me [I only cheated on Janet once], and the fictional Nella, despite her rapaciousness, is not my ex-wife.)

  To the point: Carole—it would be shortsighted and foolish for you to leave campus on my account. From this day forward, I won’t call your office more than once a week, and I promise never again to stop by unannounced with your favorite artichoke salad—which I ended up eating alone, by the way, on a cold metal bench on the quad, attracting the attention of itinerant polemicists and pamphleteers.

  I will leave you in peace. And of course if I can’t persuade you to stay, I’d be willing to write you a recommendation …

  Deep breath and new subject. Interview Rosenthal. Just ask him to keep his left arm covered, unless you want to be exposed to a fleshy panoply of R-rated tattoos.

  With the usual professionalism and longing,

  JF

  * * *

  * The Times called it “an insider’s seedy, salacious guide to the notorious Seminar”—which probably nudged the book toward a second printing.

  December 11, 2009

  Theodore Boti, Sociologist and Commander-in-Chief

  Department of English

  Dear Ted:

  Via this LOR I hereby nominate Gwendolyn Hoch-Dunn for this semester’s English Undergraduate Thesis Award. Ms. Hoch-Dunn has a 3.9 GPA and is currently completing, under my supervision, a thirty-five-page monograph on Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth: specifically, an examination of romantic and economic trajectories in the novel. Hoch-Dunn is a superb student: she will graduate magna cum laude in spring,
spend a year enlarging her personal horizon by teaching English abroad, and then succeed at whatever she chooses.

  Perhaps you’ve familiarized yourself by now with the faculty’s areas of concentration and are wondering why Ms. Hoch-Dunn is laboring away on this particular project under my direction rather than Albert Tyne’s, given that Tyne is a Wharton specialist. The fact is that Tyne, never appealing in person, has become a lecherous eyesore avoided as a matter of course by all female (and most male) students, one of whom informed me back in September—you may want to check in on this, Ted, at your earliest convenience—that instead of visiting the urinals in the men’s room Tyne has been pissing into old wine bottles, then (thank god for small favors) replacing the corks and arranging his collection in a foul gold ring around the perimeter of his office. I don’t doubt the truth of this accusation: I haven’t seen Tyne in the men’s room for years. Not being paid an administrator’s exalted salary, I have no intention of violating the sanctum of his uriniferous lair in order to do anything corrective, and it occurs to me that this particular duty might appropriately fall to a sociologist …

  Poor Ms. Hoch-Dunn. Her other advisory options, subtracting those who have entered phased retirement or sabbatical, those who always refuse student requests for assistance as a matter of course, and the clinically insane, were Donna Lovejoy (now circulating her CV like a blackjack dealer at every conference in order to extricate herself from our department), Sandra Atherman (as am I, she is laden like a burro with advisees every semester), and me. Lance West advises the rhetoricians (and having, inexplicably, been turned down for the Campiello Award, he will probably be gone by the end of this year). Technically, yes, Ms. Hoch-Dunn might have queried Zander Hesseldine, but he is currently interested only in postcolonial theory, whereas I am—the students understand this—not afraid or ashamed to be a dinosaur, a person who reads and teaches novels (not “texts”), and who instills whenever possible during class sessions a fast-fading (and, to the students, possibly retrograde or endearing) humanistic agenda, emphasizing literary inquiry into the human experience and the human condition. As far as period and subject matter, my tastes are eclectic, but I remain generally unmoved by floating houses and mythical grandmothers returned from the dead, which are—let’s be honest here—the contemporary equivalent of elves and unicorns.