Dear Committee Members, Julie Schumacher’s eighth novel, is an epistolary satire of academia that has been earning—as the title of a Slate review puts it, “Strongest possible endorsement.” Made up of letters of recommendation written by a beleaguered literature professor (whose promising career in fiction is now just a fading memory), the book is a bitingly witty portrait of a dying English department and the embittered man who dwells in its decomposing innards. As Professor Fitger writes his oft-counterproductive endorsements, his letters slowly become more unbalanced and autobiographical, giving the reader glimpses into his past. Praised as a “mordant minor masterpiece,” by NPR, it sounds like the sort of book you should perhaps hurry up and finish during the summer—when the worn-out cynicism of the letter-writing professor seems more removed from the reality of your everyday working life. Schumacher will be joined in discussion by Ethan Rutherford, author of The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories.