Hi Dody,
I identify as a “character over everything” reader, so I deeply relate to your desire for unforgettable portraits of imaginary people. You also mentioned in your request form that you love a campus novel, which made me think of Paul Murray’s Skippy Dies, which I read this year after inhaling The Bee Sting (which I also strongly recommend, though it’s less campus-forward).
Skippy Dies, which follows students and teachers at an Irish boarding school, is one of those enviably virtuosic novels that manage to convince you that every single character, even those who are essentially walk-ons, have a full inner life with which the writer is intimately acquainted, even when he only hints at it. Murray is, crucially, very funny, but his humor is rarely at the expense of his characters—rather, he uses it to deepen their humanity.
There’s something a little bit zany in the book, too, but like the book’s humor (and its tragedy), it’s a zaniness deeply rooted in truth. It is—forgive me—the essential zaniness of the human condition.
I think this is what I (and maybe you?) love so much about campus novels. Every part of our humanity is so close to the surface in those days, for better and for worse. Such rich soil for the character-obsessed.
With that in mind I’ll close out with one bonus recommendation: Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep. One of my absolute favorite character studies. Sittenfeld’s protagonist, Lee Fiora, is deeply uncomfortable at her tony East Coast boarding school, and in her own skin, and Sittenfeld’s exploration of her high school journey is brilliant, funny, and at times too close for comfort. All to say: I first read the novel more than a decade ago, and I still think of Lee often.
I hope you find more than a few characters in these pages who will occupy your mind for years to come!
–Jessie Gaynor,
Senior Editor
