The third in a trilogy about beleaguered professor Jason Fitger. 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" 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.
It must be said that The English Experience cannot be appreciated without having read the previous volumes, and, while entertaining and bittersweet, it is not as mordantly funny as its predecessors. But those of us who have followed Jason Fitger through the pages of those wonderfully sharp, witty comedies will want to learn the professor’s fate.
Schumacher’s trilogy brilliantly skewers the soulless, administrator-led world of contemporary universities, concluding with this edifying and satisfying novel.
