Julie Schumacher: Dear Committee Members

Consider this missive a testament to Mr. Trent’s preparedness for the work your place of business undoubtedly has in store.

Hoping to maintain a distance of at least one hundred yards,

Jason T. Fitger

Professor of Creative Writing and English

Payne University (“Teach ’til It Hurts”)

(My all-inclusive calendar invites me to celebrate Diwali today)

Ken Doyle

Hautman and Doyle Literary Agency

141 West 27th Street

New York, NY 10001

Dear Ken—

Business first: I’m writing on behalf of a student — you remember students from our Seminar days, I’m sure — Darren Browles, who is currently putting the finishing touches on a powerhouse work of fiction: a debut novel, an excerpt from which, if I manage to knock some sense into his rocky skull, will be on your desk next week.

Accountant in a Bordello is a shattering reinterpretation of “Bartleby” the main character, tight-lipped introvert Herman Crown, is an accountant at one of the biggest legal whorehouses in the state of Nevada, spending his days tallying expenses, passing up opportunities at wealth and advancement, eschewing friendships, and generally maintaining, amidst the titillating hubbub of his surroundings, a dispassionate isolation, an existential solitude. The prose — at one moment profoundly spare, the next moment rococo — is entirely his own; Ken, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. I urged him to send you the entire manuscript (which, admittedly, should be trimmed, at five-hundred-plus pages), but Browles is cautious and will probably submit only the first several chapters. As his advisor, even I haven’t read the book straight through — Browles hands me a chunk, scuttles back to his hidey-hole to revise, then reappears with another. Ken: take him on. This is a book that — after a little light housework — should garner multiple bids at auction. And a healthy advance will allow Browles to trim and to work with a top-notch editor on the final version.

On the personal side: I’m sorry about the tone of the conversation we had last year. Transfer of Affection didn’t sell the way either of us had hoped (where did that pinhead in the Inquirer get off calling it an “embarrassment for both author and reviewer”?), but that was a blip, not a moratorium — and for you to hand the excerpt of my novel in progress to your assistant … Well, never mind. Water under the bridge and all that; I’m sure the twelve-year-old you assigned the task of evaluating my work did her utmost. In any case, I hope you won’t let the memory of any previous quibbles prevent you from recognizing a phenomenon like Browles, who, I believe, will soon be enjoying some literary solitude at Bentham.

You’ve heard that Eleanor A. is now Bentham’s director? Do you remember her throwing an apple core at me across the Seminar table in HRH’s class? She was ill-disposed toward me even before I wrote and published Stain . Here’s hoping her directorial skills are better than her throwing arm.

Nostalgically,

Jay

Confidential Reference for LTZ39JN7 Jervana Natal

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

Ms. Natal is a senior due to graduate in May of this coming year. I have known her for

Confidential Reference for LTZ39JN7 Jervana Natal

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

I have known Ms. Natal for approximately eight weeks. She is a senior due to graduate in

Confidential Reference for LTZ39JN7 Jervana Natal

You have requested technological assistance regarding the submission of the above-named reference. Please describe the problem you are experiencing.

The problem I am experiencing is that every time I hit the fucking return key or try to indent a

Confidential Reference for LTZ39JN7 Jervana Natal

the fucking return key or try to indent or god forbid fit a coherent sentence into your fucking

Student Services/Fellowship Office

14 Gilbert Hall

Attn: The Gentle Carole Samarkind, Associate Director

Dear Carole:

This letter’s purpose is to provide the usual gratuitous language recommending a student, one Gunnar Lang, for a work-study fellowship. Lang — a sophomore with a mop of blond dreadlocks erupting from the top of his head like the yellow coils of an excess brain — tells me that he has applied, unsuccessfully, for this same golden opportunity three times and that this is his final attempt to satisfy our university’s endless requests for redundant documentation. He needs a minimum of eight to ten hours of work-study per week — preferably in the library rather than the slops of food service. Deny him the fellowship and he will undoubtedly turn his hand to something more lucrative, probably hawking illegal substances between the athletic facilities and the Pizza Barn.

I’ll go ahead and point out the obvious: Lang’s GPA is a respectable 3.4; he’s on track, academically, despite a shift from psychology to English; and a ten-minute conversation with the subject himself reveals that he has bona fide thoughts and knows how to apportion them into relatively grammatical sentences. You should do yourself a favor and invent a reason to meet him. He’s charming in a saucy, loose-limbed way, and his hair — his parents did right to name him Gunnar — is a phenomenon unto itself that I suspect you’ll enjoy.

There: Lang has my stamp of approval and imprimatur. Now let me say how appreciative I am of the cordial professionalism you’ve reestablished between us. I’m sure you know how profoundly I regret that boneheaded e-mail in August, and of course I don’t blame you for cutting things off (though I wish you’d told me you’d be reclaiming the coffee machine, which was a gift, after all; I’m reminded of its absence every day by a circle of grime on the Formica).

Side note: I saw that you and Janet are both serving on the diversity committee.* Might that be … awkward? I do hope you won’t sit next to each other. Even six years after our divorce, Janet considers herself an expert on the subject of my many foibles, and she is often eager to share her questionable wisdom with others. Fair warning here, Carole: though smooth-spoken and polished, Janet is as cunning as a wolverine.

Back to business. Please get the work-study fellowship for Lang and put him in the library, or even here in the department. He needs to acquaint himself with the nineteenth century before I let him loose in Donna Lovejoy’s class.

Missing you (and missing my coffee),

J.

* I was barred from that committee myself; my filibuster last year (I argued that the arts are a form of diversity) was sadly characterized as “divisive.”

Payne University Medical School*

Admissions Office

375 Newton Hall

Dear Committee Members,

This letter recommends Vivian Zelles for admission to Payne University’s medical school. Ms. Zelles is an excellent student, as will be obvious from her scores and transcripts. The recipient of an undergraduate double degree in biochemistry and music (enhanced by a minor in English), she is currently pursuing a master’s in comparative literature while simultaneously composing a book-length novel/memoir, a coy mishmash of forms. She is a member of that rare breed whose feet are planted as firmly in the arts as in the sciences.

I have known Ms. Zelles for approximately nine months, in the context of two creative writing workshops. She is a fastidious and methodical stylist: one imagines her setting each word in place with a jeweler’s loupe. Her ultimate plan, in applying to med school, may be to join the ranks of physician-writers who, not content to leave the pursuit of literary success to the starving artist, complement their million-dollar medical salaries with Random House contracts. (Move over, Gawande and Hosseini!)