You ask why I don't live here? - A satire on the types and gripes of academe

As I near the end of Julie Schumacher's academic satire, Dear Committee Members (2014) she does nudge the pathos up a notch or two, as we begin to see the emergence of a few secondary characters who will, sadly, be familiar types to those familiar with the academic world. Most notable is the emergence of the character (name I forgot, typical) who is completing a 500+-age updating of Bartleby and is touted by his academic advisor as the next great American avant-garde novelist. The novel - which is entirely composed of letters (or emails or electronic responses to sets of queries) of recommendation during one academic year from a writing professor (Jason or Jay Fitger - near-acronym for grief, let's note) - begins with a strong recommendation for a writing fellowship (something like a stay at McDowell or Yaddo). The young man is summarily rejected, and we learn that the turn-down is in part out of spite to JF (his ex-wife is the director). We trace over the time the pitiful demise of the young man, as we read recommendations for increasingly mind-numbing positions - working his way down to managing an RV park. Meanwhile, another student who has all the right charisma - good-looking, topical, etc. - gets a huge advance on her novel-memoir, and of course JR worries he won't get sufficient credit for advancing his career. The letters serve to eviscerate the whole academic system, but at the heart of course is Fitger, and by the half-way point of this book we cringe at the harm he is doing to so many innocent (if sometimes undeserving) aspirants and applicants: All of his letters are really about him and his malaise; he's entirely cynical about the process, surmising that his letters will make no difference either way, and he uses these letters as way to air his gripes, with the university administration, with his agent who's more or less abandoned him, with his two exes who have more or less surpassed him in their careers. One potentially interesting character on the sidelines is acknowledged star from Fitger's grad-school days (he seemingly was part of the Iowa workshop) who is now living off the grid and proceeding slowly with his possibly brilliant 2nd novel; JF seems unable to arouse interest in this guy or his work, either. Most of the letters are pretty nasty in tone, though in a few cases the applicant deserves the scorn, notably one unabashed plagiarist who has the gall to seek a recommendation anyway (she'll probably do OK thanks to her purse brashness). Anyone who's served time in academe will recognize many of the types and gripes, and will get the dark humor - this work must be very entertaining when presented at a reading - but there's a certain coldness at the heart. Characters in novels don't have to be "likable" (Raskolnikov, e.g.) but if they're not they have to evoke at least a modicum of sorrow and pity. I don't feel sorry for one wit for Fitger. (Note: One of JF's students is writing about Cather's The Professor's House, a much more humane, if dated, novel about academe; nice to see Schumacher give a shoutout to that near-forgotten work.)