This is an interesting Kluge book. It's basically a memoir about how Kluge went back to his alma mater for an academic year to teach a writing course. Each chapter is subsequent month in the semester, starting with (obviously) orientation in September and ending with graduation in May. What makes this book so interesting is the honest look Kluge takes of academia in general. As someone who has experienced both sides of the desk (student and faculty), he is free to examine the day to day as well as the behind-closed-doors politics of campus life. Every topic is fair game: tenure, scholarship, Greek life, dormitory living, the hiring process, alumni relations, the formation of committees to name a few. But it was the admissions process; specifically the process of accepting prospective students I found really interesting. Kluge takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to Alma Mater but what was really surprising was how negative a picture Kluge paints of Kenyon. The comments were so frequent I was tempted to reread the book just to take note of every dissatisfaction. As an aside, most of the negativity didn't come from Kluge. It came from faculty, the occasional student, alumni, and even the president of the college. ( )

I had intended to read this before leaving Kenyon (it was on my List Of Things To Do Before Leaving Ohio, after all, and I was pretty serious about crossing things off that list), but I didn't get a chance to pick it up until this morning. So I'm reading it as I'm returning to my own alma mater; and after several consecutive nights of walking the campus and visiting favorite places, sites of trauma, etc.; and almost exactly a year to the day that Jason and I drove back for alumni weekend and I realized that I could stand to be here without dropping to the ground and covering my head with my hands.

I'll probably write more when I've finished reading this, but for now I'll mention that P.F. Kluge was one of the first faculty members I met when I started working at Kenyon in September 2006. During our first interaction, he introduced me to his typewriter. He's the only member of the Kenyon community ever to send me an email that began with the greeting "yo, melanie." At last year's Kenyon Review Writers' Harvest, I read a weird little story after he read one of his not-weird essays, and it was not at all stressful for me to take the stage following the campus celebrity and writer-in-residence, she said sarcastically. ( )

I really want to take a class with this professor. He wrote the preamble to the constitution of Guam.