In ambiguity and continuing the search,
J. T. Fitger, Professor of English and Creative Writing
Payne University
* * *
* Mainly because my mother believed that Episcopalian women dressed better than Catholics, and I suspect she was right.
March 22, 2010
Rene DeClerc, Chair
Department of Politics and Government
11 Tenafield Hall West
Dear Rene—
Louise Frame is applying for the position of associate administrator in your department; happily, I am able to recommend her to you without reservation and with a clear conscience. Ms. Frame has served as associate administrator in the Department of English for nineteen years (I remember when she arrived, fresh faced and vibrant, having no idea of the devastating environment into which she had come); she is fully adept at accounts and billing; she is responsible and highly professional (the young man who will undoubtedly rise through the ranks to replace her in our unit dresses like a sanitation worker); and she has taken only three sick days (three!) in the past eight years.
Typically in a letter such as this one, it behooves the writer to address the applicant’s motive or incentive to seek a new job. We both know that shouldn’t be necessary in this case: one can only interpret a desire to exit the Department of English as a mark of sound judgment. It is an indication of Ms. Frame’s loyalty to Sarah Lempert (now retired—she chaired for eight of Louise’s nineteen years) that it took her so long to decide to go.
Poor Ms. Frame is too discreet an employee to reveal the particular absurdity or humiliation that tipped the scales and persuaded her to seek reassignment: it might have been the fisticuffs in the lounge over the issue of undergraduate curriculum, or the faculty meeting (Ms. Frame faithfully taking minutes) during which a senior colleague, out of his mind over the issue of punctuation in the department’s mission statement, threatened to “take a dump” (there was a pun on the word “colon” which I won’t belabor here) at a junior faculty member’s door.
We have long vied for recognition as the most dysfunctional of departments (Psychology, of course, with “Madman” Tollson at the helm has generally been first); now, with a paper-pushing outsider (Ted B.) as chair, we are living in a Brave New Department, in a building half of which has been cordoned off with tape as a hazardous zone. Those of us who remain in Willard Hall abandon the relative safety of our offices only to tiptoe into the hallway to use the restroom. (In fact, one member of the department has created his own intra-office relief station—but I will spare you those details or offer them up at a more opportune time.)
In sum, Louise Frame is an exemplary employee. Take pity on her, throw her a lifeline, and allow her to dry herself off among friends.
From the prow of the Titanic,
JTF
March 24, 2010
H. Reginald Hanf, Professor Emeritus
Hollyhock Terrace, Grovewood Homes
19803 Wellington Avenue
Hartford, CT 06120
Dear Reg,
After some effort, I believe I have tracked you down at the above address. I hope you’re well. I was sorry to hear about the stroke (news of your retirement traveled in seismic shivers through the daily papers), and I can appreciate your desire for privacy as well as rest. I wouldn’t bother you on my own behalf: I’m writing for the benefit of and unbeknownst to my advisee, Darren Browles, truly a diamond in the rough and one of the most original student writers I have encountered in the twenty-two years since I graduated, grateful for everything you did for me, from the Seminar.
Briefly: Browles’s funding at Payne has been cut by the technocrats who have lately seized power over this institution, and he can’t afford to finish his degree or—more crucially—his novel, currently titled For the Sake of a Scrivener. Remembering how crucial your support of Stain was for me, I’m taking the liberty of enclosing several of Browles’s chapters: I’m hoping you can peruse them, see the raw potential, and use your influence—either to connect Browles with an agent (Ken Doyle is not the right fit for this project) or to recommend that he be admitted, belatedly and with funding (and I know it’s not the same now, without you), to the Seminar.
You might logically suggest that the easier route would be to send Browles to Bentham. I’ve already tried: I wrote him an over-the-top letter, but Eleanor has rejected him repeatedly, despite or because of my panegyrics. Her rancor is personal and dates back to Stain: she claimed that my object in writing the novel was humiliation—specifically, that I made her the unwilling model for my character, Esther, and that the sex scenes in the book (though I did eliminate one of the most lurid) too nearly depicted the stormy liaison in which we briefly engaged. She said your enthusiasm for Stain was misogynistic—and that it was vanity and a “puppeteer’s obsession with control” that led you to help me win that first publication. My ex-wife, Janet (I’m sure you remember her: you described her work as “unrealized” and “sterile”), originally dismissed Eleanor’s complaints as overreaction. She pointed out that the book wouldn’t have gone into paperback and a third printing if its only attribute was the embarrassment of a former flame. Now that we are divorced, Janet sympathizes with Eleanor; they correspond. As for Stain: how excruciating two decades later, those blowsy fanfaronades of the prose; and who is that beady-eyed intense young author with the full head of hair?
I’m not asking for eleventh-hour honesty here: you were a terrific advisor, whether you believed in what I was writing or whether—amused by Stain’s teasing references to the intimate lives of those who gathered around you at the Seminar table—you viewed my work as an experiment, a test of your influence, both on me and the market. The outcome for me, no matter your motive, was the same, and in either case, I am grateful. Though most of my work is out of print (perhaps deservedly so, in regard to Save Me for Later and Alphabetical Stars), Stain secured me a job, a tenured position that many would envy. (My pre-Seminar career involved the sale of cleaning products from the back of a Chevy Chevette.) Still, I feel a moment of reckoning approaching. My own writing interests me less than it used to; and while I know that to teach and to mentor is truly a calling, on a day-to-day basis I often find myself overwhelmed by the needs of my students—who seem to trust in an influence I no longer have, and in a knowledge of which, increasingly, I am uncertain—and by the university’s mindless adherence to bureaucratic demands.
I’m sure you have your own frustrations, but if there’s anything you can do for Browles, any assistance similar to that which, twenty-two years ago, you extended to me, I would so appreciate the favor. Please note that I’m enclosing these pages from his proposal and his opening chapters without his knowledge; unlike his advisor, Browles does not advocate for himself and is an unassuming man.
Thank you, Reg. Still gazing up at you on that pedestal, fondly,
Jay
March 29, 2010
Amis and Portman Associates
165 South First Avenue
Baxton, MI 48103
Attention: Mary T. Radziwill
Dear Ms. Radziwill:
Abhinav Mehta has requested that I send a letter of recommendation to your firm on his behalf and, though I am supposed to be enjoying the one-week hiatus known and dreaded in vacation spots across the globe as “spring break,” I am happy to do so; but I have encountered several obstacles. The first is that Mr. Mehta, despite the desperate language in which he couched his desire for me to attend to this letter with the utmost speed, no longer responds to his university e-mail or phone, and did not deign to inform me of the position for which he is applying. Such are the communication skills of the up-and-coming generation: they post drunken photos of themselves at parties, they share statuses, they emit tweets and send all sorts of intimate pronouncements into the void—but they are incapable of returning a simple phone call. Second, my inquiry to your firm, Amis and Portman, fails to shed any light on the subject of a possible hire. Your website req
uests that I load particular software into my own irregularly functioning computer (no, I will not), and your answering service functions as an impenetrable barrier, insisting that I press, in numeric form, the first three letters of the last name of the individual to whom I wish to speak. I tried entering a few letters at random, but to no avail.
I can offer you some informative tidbits should Mr. Mehta resurface for the (unspecified) job with your mysterious firm:
1. Mr. Mehta received a final grade—in my Junior/Senior Creative Writing Workshop—of B+, having completed a short story about a cannibal couple, husband and wife, who find themselves stranded and hungry by a fire pit after a cave-in. Intended to be philosophical rather than humorous, the story nevertheless succeeded in great comic effect.
2. Mr. Mehta’s transcript may give the erroneous impression of indolence, given that he stitched his education together like a crazy quilt over a period of six years. In Mr. Mehta’s defense, I know that he worked almost full-time and had multiple problems with his student loans—byzantine snafus that prevented him from registering on time for required classes. Suffice it to say that I could run the Office of Financial Aid at this institution more efficiently on the back of a dirty envelope than the current dean, with his cabal of neurotic misfits, has managed to do.
Should your firm and Mr. Mehta abandon your respective cloaks of anonymity and locate each other, I believe you will be reasonably satisfied with his organizational and writing skills.
In camera obscura,
J. Fitger, Professor, Creative Writing and English
April 5, 2010
Janet Matthias-Fitger
Payne University Law School
17 Pitlinger Hall
Dear Janet,
I know you aren’t on the search committee for the administrative assistant position, but to hell with protocol: you’re the only person I know or trust in the law school, everyone understands that you’re pulling the strings over there (your decision to divorce me having increased the esteem in which most staff and faculty hold you), and I’m counting on your willingness to respond to this LOR, because the situation is dire.
Who am I recommending? Louise Frame. You remember Louise from my earlier years in Willard Hall; I believe you once described her as an island of hospitality in the heart of darkness of the department. You may have heard that she accepted the administrative job in Political Science: true, she did, and she happily said yes to their larger salary—but three or four days ago her meth-addict daughter cruised into town just long enough to deposit on Louise’s doorstep a two-year-old whose name is X. Not Xerxes or Xavier, but the letter X, a silent, emotionally scarred creature summarily abandoned in Louise’s kitchen without a suitcase or a toy or clothes. An act of hideous neglect, yes; but according to Louise, given the shape her daughter was in, it was also, possibly, an attempt at redemption and an act of kindness—a second chance for her son.
So. The Poli-Sci job is full-time, and you know those spreadsheet-loving barbarians will work her to death; and because of X having parachuted into her life (he doesn’t yet speak, or she hasn’t heard him do so), Louise needs two months off, minimum, after which you know she’d be the ideal associate administrator you’re looking for, efficient and smart and organized—but you must give her benefits with a 75-percent-time position and match her Poli-Sci salary (the law school can easily afford it) because of the child. I suggested that she make an appointment to see you and she completely broke down. And don’t tell me she should come back to English: the latch on that door has clicked shut behind her; we’ve already hired a semicompetent aphasic at less than half of Louise’s pay.
Perhaps it’s a godsend you and I never had a child.
Did I tell you I wrote to HRH? You may find that a ludicrous gesture, but it occurred to me that he might use his (waning) influence to benefit Browles.* And, by the by, where does Eleanor get off, telling you that Browles’s “Bartleby” excerpt was “an unholy mess”? He hasn’t had adequate time to revise, and he feels like an orphan now that the safety net of the graduate program’s benefits is being sliced out from under his feet. Say what you like about the Seminar: we were all funded back then, and we may not have lived high on the hog, but neither were we plunged into financial crisis. I tell you, Janet, I am becoming soft and sentimental; I spend more and more time thinking back to the group of us hungering around HRH and the Seminar table: our yearning kept us alive and enriched us. And now that our bowls have been filled and we’ve been sent off with our dollops of gruel—what enriches us now?
I so enjoyed our lunch back in February. It was good to hear that you’re writing again. I have a vision of myself from the early days of our marriage, hunched like a bullfrog at the paint-splattered table overlooking the Welligers’ garage, concocting a supposed work of genius and barely mumbling an acknowledgment when you knocked at the door to tell me you were going to accept the job at the law school. You’d sealed your manuscript into a series of manila envelopes and filed them on a shelf in the closet. And there I was, typing like a madman (I used to allow myself a shot of Prairie Vodka after every five pages; I should have smacked my skull with a plank instead), imagining myself a Brilliant Young American Novelist. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Could we schedule an additional lunch this year? Why should we limit ourselves to two?
Louise promised me she would contact you ASAP. Prepare yourself: She used to be stoic and unruffleable, but given the arrival of X (I’ve urged her to file for a birth certificate and lengthen his name), she has become a weeper. Keep an eye on the trembling lower lip.
Forever your ex-spouse,
Jay
P.S.: How did you end up with a copy of the LOR I wrote for Carole, to Shepardville? I agree it was somewhat draconian—and I’ve tried to apologize to Carole, but she won’t answer my e-mails and no longer allows me into her office. Realistically, though: Was I supposed to stand by, twiddling my thumbs, while on my account she threw her career down the toilet? If my LOR outraged you so much, I suppose you could write her a letter yourself. But would Carole interpret that gesture as solidarity? Or as your own (subconscious) desire to see her leave town?
* * *
* As for your suggestion that Browles appeal for emergency funding to the grad student council: that body is commandeered, as per usual, by a group of unshaven Stalinists—still, I passed the idea along.
April 13, 2010
Peter B. Andrews, Executive Editor
Folkstone Publishing
26 Ulysses Avenue, Suite B
Chicago, IL 60618
Dear Peter Andrews,
In response to your e-mail query received this morning, I’m delighted to endorse Ken Doyle’s recommendation that Folkstone reissue Troy Larpenteur’s exquisite debut, Second Mind. Second Mind was an underappreciated landmark when Folkstone took a chance and premiered it almost seventeen years ago; now, of course, it’s a cult classic, copies of which are jealously traded and difficult to find. I thoroughly agree with Ken’s suggestion regarding the William Gass remarks—they should be prominently displayed on the front cover—and the reuse of H. Reginald Hanf’s original blurb on the back. You might also solicit a paragraph of praise from Eleanor Acton, who has, as you probably know, offered Troy a coveted teaching-free residency at Bentham. And finally, yes, I can vouch for academic interest in the book, which will be assigned here at Payne and at other universities in both creative writing and contemporary literature classes.
Folkstone’s timing on this reissue is truly fortuitous: Troy’s long-awaited and groundbreaking second volume (sworn to secrecy about its content, I’ve read only a few remarkable excerpts) will more than live up to and increase the buzz surrounding his first.
Please keep me apprised as to the (re)publication schedule, as I generally complete larger orders of required books for classroom use three months ahead, and let me know if there is anything I can do to help promote the work of this very talented man.
With genuine as well as v
icarious pleasure,
J. Fitger, Professor of Creative Writing and English
Payne University
Author, Stain; Alphabetical Stars; Save Me for Later; and Transfer of Affection
April 16, 2010
Office of Mental Health and Wellness
Intervention Team
Attention: Suzanne Gross, MSW, LP
Dear Ms. Gross,
Having disposed of the budding psychopath, Mr. Wyatt Innes, I am sending to your office with this letter in hand a human bath of tears named Ida Lin-Smith, who tells me she called your office for an appointment and was turned away. I did not inquire as to her malady, but a simple glance in her direction suffices to inform me that she requires attention. Please offer her something more lasting and substantial than guided breathing or twenty minutes with a golden retriever.
I sometimes wonder, Ms. Gross, about the source of such widespread unhappiness. I imagine a manufactory of anxiety and sorrow belching out clouds of discontent on the north side of campus. (Some miseries, of course, are self-inflicted. You are probably aware of my e-mail fiasco at the end of last summer, my “reply to all” message disclosing to every member of the faculty, staff, and administration my desire to rekindle a relationship with my ex-wife, Janet Matthias—a blunder that inspired the good Carole Samarkind to sever forever our romantic ties. I am increasingly prone to mistakes of this sort, perhaps because of the ticker tape of LORs that travels ceaselessly through my pen. Please admit this woman into your program. Please give this unsocialized person some funding. Please offer this mediocre student a chance to improve his condition. Pleasepleasepleaseplease.)
Dear Committee Members: A novel Page 9