New Releases by Julie Schumacher

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • Beleaguered Professor Jason Fitger chaperones Payne University’s annual “Experience: Abroad” to London and beyond, with eleven undergrads in tow • The bestselling author of Dear Committee Members and The Shakespeare Requirement completes her hilarious trilogy of academic mishap “Wise and hilarious and heartbreaking.”—Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls Jason Fitger may be the last faculty member the dean wants for the job, but he’s the only professor available to chaperone Payne University’s annual “Experience: Abroad” (he has long been on the record objecting to the absurd and gratuitous colon between the words) occurring during the three weeks of winter term. Among his charges are a claustrophobe with a juvenile detention record, a student who erroneously believes he is headed for the Caribbean, a pair of unreconciled lovers, a set of undifferentiated twins, and one young woman who has never been away from her cat before. Through a sea of troubles—personal, institutional, and international—the gimlet-eyed, acid-tongued Fitger strives to navigate safe passage for all concerned, revealing much about the essential need for human connection and the sometimes surprising places in which it is found.

One of The Washington Post''s 50 Most Notable Works of Fiction in 2018 The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune keep hitting beleaguered English professor Jason Fitger right between the eyes in this hilarious and eagerly awaited sequel to the cult classic of anhedonic academe, the Thurber Prize-winning Dear Committee Members. Once more into the breach... Now is the fall of his discontent, as Jason Fitger, newly appointed chair of the English Department of Payne University, takes arms against a sea of troubles, personal and institutional. His ex-wife is sleeping with the dean who must approve whatever modest initiatives he undertakes. The fearsome department secretary Fran clearly runs the show (when not taking in rescue parrots and dogs) and holds plenty of secrets she''s not sharing. The lavishly funded Econ Department keeps siphoning off English''s meager resources and has taken aim at its remaining office space. And Fitger''s attempt to get a mossbacked and antediluvian Shakespeare scholar to retire backfires spectacularly when the press concludes that the Bard is being kicked to the curricular curb. Lord, what fools these mortals be! Julie Schumacher proves the point and makes the most of it in this delicious romp of satire.

"The wonderfully weird illustrations in Doodling for Academics brilliantly capture the bizarre highs and arcane lows of academic life. Full of fun activities to pass the time at staff meetings, this book will be a quirky addition to any academic office"--Glen Wright, creator of Academia Obscura.

“Like Richard Russo’s Straight Man this book has a lot to say about the humanities in American colleges and universities…. Very funny and also moving.” —Tom Perrotta, New York Post A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR and Boston Globe Finally a novel that puts the "pissed" back into "epistolary." Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the midwest. His department is facing draconian cuts and squalid quarters, while one floor above them the Economics Department is getting lavishly remodeled offices. His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels. His star (he thinks) student can''t catch a break with his brilliant (he thinks) work Accountant in a Bordello, based on Melville''s Bartleby. In short, his life is a tale of woe, and the vehicle this droll and inventive novel uses to tell that tale is a series of hilarious letters of recommendation that Fitger is endlessly called upon by his students and colleagues to produce, each one of which is a small masterpiece of high dudgeon, low spirits, and passive-aggressive strategies. We recommend Dear Committee Members to you in the strongest possible terms. Don’t miss Julie Schumacher''s new novel, The English Experience, coming soon.

I''m Adrienne Haus, survivor of a mother-daughter book club. Most of us didn''t want to join. My mother signed me up because I was stuck at home all summer, with my knee in a brace. CeeCee''s parents forced her to join after cancelling her Paris trip because she bashed up their car. The members of "The Unbearable Book Club," CeeCee, Jill, Wallis, and I, were all going into eleventh grade A.P. English. But we weren''t friends. We were literary prisoners, sweating, reading classics, and hanging out at the pool. If you want to find out how membership in a book club can end up with a person being dead, you can probably look us up under mother-daughter literary catastrophe. Or open this book and read my essay, which I''ll turn in when I go back to school.

Livvie isn’t superstitious like her best friend, Joyce, who thinks everything is bad luck. So Livvie isn’t worried about tearing up the chain letter and throwing it away–until she’s humiliated in gym class, falls down her back stairs, and gets invited to Thanksgiving dinner at Peter Finch’s house. Peter’s dad has crooked teeth, a plastic wonderland in his front yard, and some kind of secret up in his study. There is no way Livvie wants Phil Finch to date her mom. But it’s hard work keeping their families apart–especially when Livvie is assigned to work on the sixth-grade snow maze project with Peter. Clearly, Joyce was right: breaking the chain was a huge mistake. And the only way to set things straight is to find out who sent the letter in the first place. . . . Rich in humor and suspense, Julie Schumacher’s absorbing novel is about friendship, choices, and the kind of luck that really matters.

WHEN DORA, ELENA’S older sister, is diagnosed with depression and has to be admitted to the hospital, Elena can’t seem to make sense of their lives anymore. At school, the only people who acknowledge Elena are Dora’s friends and Jimmy Zenk—who failed at least one grade and wears blackevery day of the week. And at home, Elena’s parents keep arguing with each other. Elena will do anything to help her sister get better and get their lives back to normal—even when the responsibility becomes too much to bear.

"I should probably mention something right now before this story goes any further: my name is Theodora Grumman, and I am a liar." It''s hard for Thea to write four truths a day in the notebook her mother gave her for the summer. Especially when her grandparents'' house on the Jersey Shore is even more packed with family than usual, and her cousin Jocelyn wont leave her alone. Jocelyn just might be the world''s neatest and nosiest seven-year-old, and she wants to know what''s in Thea''s notebook. But Thea won''t tell anyone about the secret she has promised to keep--or how she lost her best friend (Truth #12), whose name was Gwen. Now Thea has to babysit in the afternoons, and all Jocelyn wants to do is spy on people. Neither of them expect to see Aunt Ellen and Aunt Celia at the boardwalk in the middle of the day, or for their aunts to lie and insist they were at work. Could it be Thea''s not the only one in the family keeping secrets this summer?

Rather than go to a spiritual retreat in Oregon with her mother and brother, eleven-year-old Frances insists on staying in Ohio with her odd aunt, but she soon begins to worry that the retreat may really be a cult.

In these stories, Julie Schumacher captures the intensely visceral dynamics of family, the inextricable bonds of siblings, and the dangers and mysteries of adolescence, all rendered with a pathos that is totally original.

When Jane Haus, an unmarried school teacher is made pregnant, she quits her job and returns to her childhood home on the New Jersey shore to give birth. The novel describes the reaction of those around her, her father, a retired store manager, her pushy sister, and the neighbors. The mother is dead.