The English Experience

June 5, 2023
Schumacher’s droll conclusion to her Fitger trilogy (after The Shakespeare Requirement) finds the blundering American professor abroad and out of his element. Jason Fitger, the curmudgeonly chair of Payne University’s English department, is tasked with teaching the school’s Experience: England class in London over winter break. Though his ex-wife, Janet Matthias, a law school administrator at Payne, is surprised by the assignment, remembering Fitger to be a bad traveler, he’s soon off on the three-week excursion with 11 undergrads. Excerpts of their writing assignments are mixed into the narrative, including one in which the students must find their own way to the British Museum and write about an object there, while Fitger nurses a twisted ankle. One student takes unauthorized side trips to mainland Europe, to Fitger’s consternation. Adding to his worries is Janet’s request to put him as a reference on a job application, since he still loves her and doesn’t want her to leave Payne. Though the passages of student writing tend to wear thin, Schumacher draws the series to a close with a satisfying arc and a surprising twist after Fitger forms an unexpected bond with his charges. Fans will delight in this winning send-off.

August 1, 2023
The final volume of Schumacher's trilogy of academic mishap, following Dear Committee Members (2015) and The Shakespeare Requirement (2019), continues to focus on the hapless Jay Fitger, the bedraggled department chair of English and creative writing at Payne University. Jay is strong-armed by heartless administrators who hint that he can avoid further budget cuts by taking 11 students overseas to England. While stumbling around museums, enduring bus journeys, and being accosted by smarmy former colleagues, Fitger becomes a confidante to the students, a role he and his ex-wife, Janet--whom he constantly speaks to about their wonderfully named dog, Rogaine--cannot fathom why they have thrust upon him. As the students take their daily papers in increasingly hilarious directions, often discussing their love lives, drinking experiences, and few things academic, Fitger's dedication to minutiae in the face of farcical circumstances becomes admirable, almost heroic. Comfortably sitting alongside classic academic satires such as Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim and David Lodge's Changing Places, Schumacher's trilogy brilliantly skewers the soulless, administrator-led world of contemporary universities, concluding with this edifying and satisfying novel.

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Starred review from June 15, 2023
A perpetually put-upon English professor is drafted to chaperone a student trip to England, with predictably disastrous if comical results. Schumacher's previous chronicles about the perils of academia--Dear Committee Members (2014) and The Shakespeare Requirement (2018)--levy herculean challenges upon Jason Fitger, our beleaguered hero, which are off-putting in their injustice if often laugh-out-loud hilarious. Fortunately, she seems to be easing up on Payne University's least-favorite son, even if his high-strung superciliousness and propensity for accidents remain unchanged. In this third installment, Fitger has been recruited (read: blackmailed) to lead a three-week "Experience: Abroad" to London and other iconic U.K. locations during a soggy January excursion. His absence from home thankfully leads to less fretting about his academic standing at the backwater Midwestern college where he chairs the English department. However, Fitger is typically anxious about his ex-wife Janet Matthias' potential job with a university in Chicago and her looming absence from his life. There are plenty of new oddballs to fill the space, as Fitger's charges are a wonderfully weird mix of exiles from the Island of Misfit Toys. Payne University's dirty dozen include a mismatched and hot-tempered couple, a student disappointed to learn he's not on his way to the Caribbean, and a pair of artistic twins reminiscent of The Shining. On the more extreme end, Fitger finds himself the target of a prelaw student whose major requires study abroad, "which has historically been about young white Americans losing their virginity and learning how to use the salad fork." He also worries about the delicacy of a future cat lady; mentors a goth-y undergrad and a juvenile delinquent; and ponders the whereabouts of a student so absent he's found his way to mainland Europe. Along the way, Schumacher continues the series' epistolatory theme with student essays about experiences ranging from the consumption of a Scotch egg to equally unsavory field trips to Oxford, Stonehenge, and Bath. A satirical recipe that manages to turn sour, mismatched ingredients into something feather-light, affable, and sweet.

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