Have You Got the College Faculty Blues?

A Review of Lauren's Line by Sondra Spatt Olsen

Review by Michele Cooper

I never know when or why a novel will get a grip on me. It used to happen in class, more recently from gifts and borrowings and book tapes, but this time it happened when a colleague from my early teaching days at Queens College wrote a card to let me know that her comic novel, Lauren's Line, was being published by the University Press of Mississippi.

A university press? But of course! The novel is squarely set inside the university culture where we both taught English for so many years. Brilliantly set, I should say, as she caught the gist that casts a net around life in the evening English Department, where in fact, as well as in her narrative, a young woman of glamour (thin as a rail, bleached blond, tight sweaters) and brilliance (Ph.D. and publications) suddenly died in her middle thirties - I never knew exactly what happened to her - reminding us, young and old, that we, too, will die someday (maybe soon) and we should make the most of our remaining days and ways.

Lauren's death opens up a vacancy on the faculty, and that opens up a sorry can of worms as all the part-timers (the "adjuncts," underpaid and longing for full-time appointments) compete for her line in the department budget. That's where the fun - or satire - begins and everyone's true colors come out. It could be a tragedy, but in Sondra Olsen's satiric hands, it's hilarious. I gave the book to two friends who also taught on the college level, but not in New York, and both confirmed what I'd already thought: Sondra Olsen not only got it, but got it down on paper with penetrating intelligence and humor.

It's hard to forget the character types, and I can't do better in naming the principals than this clip from the press release: Cherry Binder, the department's popular feminist scholar, has been bringing her infant to class and breast-feeding in the office. In an endless, shameful quest to nail down his tenure Brian McGlinchee has forged his student-evaluation forms. Moreover he's having an affair with one of his students. Nor could George Reilly, the department's playboy and the late Lauren's lover, be earmarked as a stable candidate. He goes bonkers at the memorial service. Steve Speck - young, naïve, and introspective - is more interested in index cards and note topics than in his own promotion. There are also a distinguished African American professor, a Russian poet, a beastly administrator, a crusty custodian, and the world's oldest graduate assistant.

This is not Sondra Olsen's first literary success. She is the author of the short story collection Traps, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Prize and praised for its "cool, delicious irony" by Publishers Weekly. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, Iowa Review, Yale Review, Caroline Quarterly, Antioch Review, and Mississippi Review. I remember getting a postcard some years ago that read, "Look in The New Yorker next March." It was her story "44-28," about an older woman, younger man romance when that kind of thing was much rarer (and much less publicized). Bravo, I thought about the publication, and so well deserved.

Olsen was born in Brooklyn and has lived most of her life in Manhattan. Her fiction takes place on the crowded sidewalks and in the crowded apartments of New York City. She still lives in the same flat where she and her husband raised two clever children.

Here's some feedback from the critics, and if this doesn't suggest taking a look at this truly funny and revealing novel and you know anything about university life, you'll be missing something.

"Academic novels are notoriously tricky, but Sondra Spatt Olsen has pulled off precisely the right balance of savage satire and bemused empathy. Lauren's Line is enticing, hilarious and (I am sorry to say) accurate. Its vision of academic ambition and frustration is something like a very funny cartoon of hell." Valerie Sayers, author of Brain Fever

"A mordantly funny book!" Terese Svoboda, author of Trailer Girl and Other Stories

"Lauren's Line is an exquisitely wicked and gleeful satire, a send-up of the power struggles, the backbiting, the intrigues, and the sexual shenanigans that characterize life in a municipal college. Sondra Spatt Olsen has in one bound placed herself in the ranks of the very best satirists of academe. Her book is an enviable achievement." Alan Isler, author of The Prince of West End Avenue and Clerical Errors

And here are two excerpts. The first is from early in the novel; the second is from Lauren's memorial service.

Excerpt 1

October 17, 1984

At about five that afternoon, the East Science Facility sank into unnatural quiet. Most Municipal College students had already fled to buses and parking lots and the liveliness and warmth of home. Evening classes did not begin till six. On the first floor of the squat windowless building that looked like a warehouse, only two classes in English were winding down. Someone peeping through the glass window in the door of Room 101 could catch Lucille Streng at the blackboard, underlining topic sentences for the wakeful few in her remedial class.
Next door in Room 102, Igor Blavatsky sat on his desk in his green tweed suit, puffing a clandestine cigarette and dreaming of Odessa. Under the humming of the fluorescent light fixture and the hissing of the fitful streams of air that passed for ventilation in ESF, his freshman comp students bent their heads to ponder their essay question: Are Happy Families All Alike?

In Room 103, a disused classroom where normally no air blew, the English department subcommittee on the prelaw major had been in session since three o'clock. Deadlocked on a crucial vote to require The House of the Seven Gables, its members sat slumped in exhaustion. "I move to return to the Committee of the Whole," said the Chair in a voice clotted with fury. "All in favor?" Steve Speck fingered his five o'clock shadow. Five faint voices said, "Aye."

On the second floor of ESF-the biology labs-rats and guinea pigs scurried restlessly in their cages, awaiting dinner. A lone white coated technician sat in a supply closet, meditatively smoking a joint.
On the top floor, the narrow corridors of ESF grew even narrower, linking twenty two windowless faculty cubicles. By five o'clock the men and women of the English department had fled their cells, all but one devoted soul, as the faint clacking in the middle distance of a Royal manual typewriter testified, Cherry Binder working on a draft for Feminist English Today.

The maddeningly slow elevator-made for the handicapped-rose to the third floor. Elisabeth Hofrichter, maintenance person for ESF, slowly stepped out. Taking her time and muttering to herself, "God! My papers are in order. Always!" she unlocked the broom closet and pulled out the tall trash barrel on wheels. Jingling her keys back into her pants pocket, she pushed the barrel down the hall. Her barrel was fat, her back in its rough twill maintenance uniform extensive. No human could push past her. "Alles in Ordnung." She nodded her head.
Elisabeth unlocked the first faculty office, flipped the light switch, reached in-the cubicle could barely hold two chairs, a desk, file cabinet, and wastebasket-and emptied the trash into her barrel. "Papers in order, do they believe or not, Gott my witness." She pulled the door closed, and, taking two steps, unlocked the neighboring office door with the same key. "Papers," she said. She switched on the light and screamed.

On the floor of ESF 309, Lauren Goldberg lay, a pool of blood soaking the green industrial carpet.

 

Excerpt 2

Everyone in the Department of English complained about Lucille Streng, her pushiness, her blasting laugh, her dimwitted mimeographed notices. Yet somehow Lucille served on every committee, chaired every function, and could not be suppressed. Her pushiness had a life of its own. Those unfortunate enough to fall into the quicksand of her presence struggled at first, but soon sank.

"Let me say a few words about Lauren before introducing the others, starting with a little anecdote I thought very revealing." Lucille gave a pleased anticipatory yip, meaning, You'll love this.

"Lauren was a terrific worker. She took on a lot of responsibility. She was busy but very well organized. When I served with her once on the University Task Force for Pluralism and Diversity, I was amazed at how quickly she completed her paperwork. How do you do it, I asked.

"Of course, she didn't have any children, which makes it hard on some of us women professors. But the work she did was truly amazing."

Lucille walked round to the front of the lectern, bent her knee and leaned her buttock against the mahogany. "I'll share with you what she told me, and you may want to use it in your own lives."

Allen nudged Steve sharply with his elbow. "Rather kill myself," he whispered.

"Lauren told me, 'I avoid clutter in everything I do, and I set limits. Whenever I buy a new dress or a skirt, before I hang it in my closet, I give or throw away another dress or skirt. I have many books in my library. Whenever I buy a new book I remove an unwanted volume from the shelves.'"

Lucille stopped and let the impact of her words sink in. "An unwanted volume from the shelves," she intoned. "Listen to her words, 'I set limits.' Think about them. Ask yourself . . ." Lucille paused and stared out at her audience. Steve shrank in his seat, hoping Lucille wouldn't call on him. "Would you have the courage to do the same?

"We will now have five minutes of silent meditation, then a brief selection by the Ars Longa Trio, Schubert's Trio no. 3. Unfortunately, the chair of the English department wasn't feeling well today and was forced to go home early, but we will hear a few words about Lauren Goldberg's scholarly accomplishments from the associate chair, and then a few more words from several of Lauren's students. But first, your silence!"

Lucille marched away from the podium and sat down next to Quinton Bloch with her head bowed. The long silence began. Instantly Steve's mind began to wander. Since grade school he'd been lousy at meditating. He could hear George Reilly still muttering on one side of him, and Allen's stertorous breathing on the other side. The fellow really was asthmatic. Whom did Lauren give the skirt or dress to? Steve wondered. Did she have a regular recipient? Did she advertise? Did she manage to get her old goods out of the house on the same day the new ones arrived, or did they languish in cardboard boxes for a few days in the basement? Wasn't it about time for Allen to stand up and tiptoe away? Or did he think it wiser to wait to hear Quinton?

The meditation was definitely over because rustling broke out all over the audience in little shuffles and ripples. Allen shifted his flanks but did not stand. The Ars Longa Trio, flute, violin, and cello, three Asian girls dressed in tasteful black jumpers, scurried around the podium, setting up their music stands and whispering to each other.

Just then George Reilly, still muttering to himself, stood up abruptly, threw off his tweed jacket and began bumping past Steve's knees towards the aisle. In baggy unspeakable trousers, he stumped to the lectern looking very pale, his longish untidy hair falling in clumps over his perspiring forehead.

Lucille was angry. "Here," she said. "What's he doing? He's not on the agenda. Here," she said with a snort.

"George, you're not on the program."

George paid no attention. He gripped the lectern and with a strong visionary gleam stared out at the audience, who stared back transfixed. George was a very attractive man, "black Irish," with pale skin, black hair, green eyes. Tonight his skin had a greenish cast. Big globules of sweat stood out on his forehead.

"I'm here to pay tribute to my beloved, who was not appreciated while she was alive . . ." George passed his hand across his eyes, as if wiping away confusing thoughts. "It's hard to believe such perfection is gone. She was a rare human being, clever, kindhearted, a tiger in bed."

With scared faces the student musicians were backing away from George, holding on to their instruments and trying to disappear into the tapestry under the claws of the dove.

"Lauren was everything to me, all beauty and happiness. Her thighs were warm. The skin of her belly was downy and delectable."

Here Lucille put her head in her hands and rocked her stout body forward. Against their wills, a few mourners began turning their heads to their neighbors and smiling, or looking around to see if Lauren's husband was in the crowd. "I never thanked her for my pleasure. I criticized her. I kept her waiting for a message. I forced her to call me at odd hours, all useless sadism." George stopped and gazed downward in despair. With a quick thrust of his right hand, he grabbed at the front of his wilted blue shirt and keened. Nothing happened for a moment. Then George jerked harder with both hands and popped off three shirt buttons, exposing his lean, marble white chest bifurcated by a line of soft black down.

With a shriek the girl with the flute ran down the side aisle and out the door. The rest of the audience sat transfixed. "My God!" George wailed. "What's the use of being alive at all?"

While George was unbuckling his belt and unzipping his fly, Quinton Bloch, who had been a halfback in college, strode across the aisle and interposed his burly body between George and the audience. He was tall enough to reach the top of the lectern without ascending the step. "Hey, George, that's enough," he barked. "You've said enough. Get off the podium!" He fluttered his hands as if scattering chickens, and, to everyone's astonishment and disappointment, George meekly rezipped and rebuckled and placed his hand across his gaping shirtfront. He then moved off to the exit as if pledging allegiance to the flag. He looked backward with a sharp tilt of his head, as if he saw Lauren's angelic form in the bright top hat lighting in the ceiling.

"He's flipped," Steve said to Allen. "There goes his contract for next year."

"He has tenure. Nothing will happen. A semester off at full pay, some graduate assistant's big bonanza."

Michele Cooper is editor of The Newport Review.