- Amy Welborn
The English Experience by Julie Schumacher.
I’d heard of this author, and had put her books on my don’t forget these exist and try to read them at some point list because they are comedic academic novels, again, one of my favorite genres. (Examples? Straight Man by Richard Russo, David Lodge’s books such as Small World and Michael Malone’s Foolscap – and many, many others.)
But this popped up, easily grabbed, so I complied. And quite enjoyed it. It’s sharp, cutting and in the end accepting of the mystery of human life – where we came from and where we’re going – and how the weird experiences we have in the present between that past and future have the power to shift our vision and sense of ourselves – for the better, if we’re paying attention.
Again, from the publisher’s website:
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.
The clever aspect of the (short) novel is how much of the tale is told through the students’ daily assignments. The revelations are not direct, though. As would be the case, the students’ writings expose the young people sometimes indirectly - even stylistically and even through their mistakes – and sometimes in the unexpected, blunt way a young person expresses himself.
It’s interesting to me how an author can make you care about a character. I didn’t care a bit about the characters in Help Wanted, but there was no way I wouldn’t finish The English Experience, hoping to see how these kids – and their professor – came out of it all. Which is interesting, because the Help Wanted crew was, in a sense more “realistic,” and probably even closely based on real people Waldman met during her time working. The English Experience characters are certainly figures you possibly might meet somewhere, but they are also more exaggerated, verging on types. So – the struggling writer wonders and settles down to figure out – why do I care more about the wacky, slightly exaggerated characters than the solemnly realistic?
Finally, the winner:
Early Sobrieties by Michael Deagler.
Don’t worry about what Dennis Monk did when he was drinking. He’s sober now, ready to rejoin the world of leases and paychecks, reciprocal friendships and healthy romances—if only the world would agree to take him back. When his working-stiff parents kick him out of their suburban home, mere months into his frangible sobriety, the 26-year-old spends his first dry summer couch surfing through South Philadelphia, struggling to find a place for himself in the throng of adulthood.
Monk’s haphazard pilgrimage leads him through a city in flux: growing, gentrifying, haunted by its history and its unrealized potential. Everyone he knew from college seems to be doing better than him—and most of them aren’t even doing that well. His run-ins with former classmates, estranged drinking buddies, and prospective lovers challenge his version of events past and present, revealing that recovery is not the happy ending he’d expected, only a fraught next chapter.
This was my favorite of the five. Some reader reviews critique it for being episodic – a novel in stories, really – but that’s fine. That’s this character’s life, and it’s not as if his character doesn’t remain consistent.
The writing was sharp, knowing and funny. And – guess what – as we approach the end, yes, there’s a Catholic element. A couple, in fact. I won’t say what they are, but one of them is related to a big Catholic event that occurred in Philadelphia over the past decade.
Early Sobrieties was a novel about addiction and recovery, yes, but even if that’s not your issue, directly or indirectly, Monk’s journey is applicable. For even if our past actions and our memories of those actions were not warped and wiped out by substances, who doesn’t look back at the past and wonder, why in the world did I do that? Who was that person? Because that sure doesn’t feel as if it’s me. And can I fix it? Can I atone?
Monk finds an answer to that question, I think, and the answer begins in an understanding of shared, broken, seeking humanity that’s revealed in an experience in the context of ritual, and encounter that seems mostly horizontal, but is probably more, the intuitive response to that encounter, which is another ritual, now an ancient one of atonement, and the final response, left open, but one which is implied to be centered in a response of care, agape, love – not across time, which is impossible, not across the sea, which is dramatic, but right where we are, which is probably the most we can do – to no longer seek escape, but settle into loving presence, right where we are.
