An academic satire w/ a twist - Dear Committee Members

Another academic satire? Yes, but Julie Schumacher's Dear Committee Members (2014) has the unique twist of being composed entirely of a series of letters of recommendation from a creative-writing professor, most of them pretty funny, some a bit sad or pathetic. It's amazing the variations JS can produce on this theme, including a series of letters to a Yaddo-like retreat touting a grad student who's writing a 500-page contemporary take on Bartleby (his B works as a bookkeeper as a Nevada brothel), various letters to committees on which either or both of his ex-wives serve as members, recommendations for students he hardly knows and for students whom he dislikes, sad letters for a student seeking work in a catfish-canning factory (tough job market). The letters of course serve as a medium for the prof to kvetch about every type of higher-ed grievance and malfeasance, which of course has made this novel a bit of cult piece for academics and of limited interest to most others. Definitely the pro's letters are on the mark about many things - log-rolling, tedious committee work, ridiculous attempts to streamline the recommendation process that only make the process more cumbersome and inaccurate, lack of resources for the humanities, et al (part of the running gag is that the English department building is falling apart as the economics wing gets shored up). On the other hand, jit's hard not to think of the prof as a constant complainer and world-class kvetch who has one of the best jobs in the world and can only complain about the burdens imposed on him and how they pull him away from his writing. Yes, the academic world is unfair and rigged - I can attest that the profs most committed to their teaching inevitably get the short end and get called upon for all sorts of extra tasks and responsibilities while the shirkers are left alone to do with their time as they wish - but it's hard not to feel much sorrow and pity for this unhappy academic. We'll see if a narrative thread develops in the 2nd half of this work and if so where it leads us.