Discarded!

The Shakespeare Requirement

by Julie Schumacher

Doubleday, 2018

reviewed by Seana Graham

The Shakespeare Requirement is the sequel to Schumacher’s earlier novel on academic life, Dear Committee Members, which won the Thurber Prize for American Humor, so you may want to start there. However, I didn’t know this at the time I found this book in a Little Library near my house. Having just been caught up in our local summer theater festival, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, the title appealed to me and I grabbed it.

Sometimes going to Little Libraries can be a bit like picking up strays. This copy, though a first edition in hardback, seems to have had a rough journey. Some kind of gummy substance has marred the cover even extending to Shakespeare’s face. There are tiny pieces of tape on the front flap, and the word “Discard” is stamped prominently on the first blank page. More intriguingly, though, the book has the words “Stark County District Library” stamped across the top edges of its pages. That didn’t sound like a county here in California. It appears that the only Stark County, U.S.A is in Ohio (although there is a Starke County in Indiana). This little book has had a long journey.

Its slightly battered state is perhaps suitable to its contents, where the English department at Payne University, a midwestern college, also seems a little the worse for wear. As the book begins, Jason Fitger, newly appointed dean, is trying to shred the latest issue of the college newspaper. The paper celebrates the recent renovation of Willard Hall for the Economic Department, neglecting the fact that the English department has received no part of the renovation, though housed in the same building. Fitger’s struggle with the shredder does not go well, nor does anything else in the department seem to be getting better any time soon.  

Fitger, a “mere”novelist and therefore not highly regarded by his more scholarly colleagues, has found himself in this hapless position mainly because no one else wants it. He has some priorities like new staff and the return of the literary journal in mind. But his administrative assistant Fran, who knows more about running the department than he ever will, points out that they have no budget. They have no budget because they have not submitted a Statement of Vision which all departments are required to do. In the end, this will require the unanimous approval of all members of the department, so Fitger ends up chasing them around for much of the novel.

The Shakespearean scholar Dennis Cassovan proves to be the hardest nut to crack, making a semester of Shakespeare a requirement for a degree in English literature his own condition for signing. When a poster of the Bard that hangs on his door is defaced and the words “Kill Will” are found scrawled over it, saving Shakespeare becomes a cause célèbre on campus, though not necessarily by people who have ever read or seen his plays performed. But they are happy to sport some attractive pins.

Schumacher deftly skewers the life of the college campus in its current incarnation and the story rings true with what I know of that from living in a university town and having college-aged friends and relatives.

And for all his hopelessness both on the job and in life, Fitger does turn out to be a bit of a mensch.

I won’t give away the ending, but I will say that there is a further sequel and that Fitger does live to fight another day—this time abroad. Taking eleven undergrads to England—what could possibly go wrong?

I know that I for one will be checking out The English Experience to find out.

Seana Graham is the book review editor at Escape Into Life. She has also reviewed for the biography website Simply Charly. She attempts to keep up with her various blogs, including Confessions of Ignorance, where she tries to learn a little bit more about the many things she does not know. She has published stories in a variety of literary journals. The recent anthology Annihilation Radiation  from Storgy Press, includes one of them. Santa Cruz Noir, a title from Akashic Press, features a story of hers about the city in which she currently resides. 

Get The Shakespeare Requirement at Penguin Random House

Interview with Julie Schumacher at Slate