A well-written campus novel, but one that — despite early promise — doesn’t deviate much from the well-worn template

A creative writing professor at a third-tier college in upstate New York is on his way home from a summer fellowship in France, where he’s spent the last three months loafing around Bordeaux, tasting the many varieties of French wine at his disposal, and doing just about anything but actually working on his long overdue novel. A stopover in Brooklyn to see his and his wife’s closest friends — John, a jaded poet-turned-lawyer with a dubious moral compass, and Sophie, a once-promising fiction writer with a complicated past and a mysterious allure — causes further trouble when he and Sophie wind up sleeping together while John is out serenading Brooklyn coeds with poems instead of preparing legal briefs.

But instead of succumbing to his failures as a teacher, writer, and husband, an odd freedom begins to bubble up. Could a love affair be the answer he’s been searching for? Could it offer the escape he needs from the department chair, Chet Bland, who’s been breathing down his neck? Relief from the gossip of colleagues and generational tension with students? Respite from embarrassment over his wife, Debra Crawford, and her meteoric rise as a novelist? His escapades might even make the perfect raw material for an absolutely devastating novel, which would earn him tenure, wealth, and celebrity — everything he needs to be set for life. If only he could be the one to write it.

I’ve always been a fan of campus novels — ever since I read Richard Russo’s very good Straight Man (recently adapted into the limited series, Lucky Hank, starring Bob Odenkirk). Since then, Julie Schumacher has joined the ranks of my all-time favourite authors. My fond reading memories are populated by a good number of novels set on campuses. It is probably unsurprising, then, that when I had the chance to read and review Andrew Ewell’s Set For Life, I jumped at the chance. As it turned out, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Continue reading →