Editorial Content for The Department
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Jacqueline Faber’s dazzling debut metaphorically resembles Jackson Pollock art: swirling scenes and names jumbled onto pages. Each seemingly insignificant scene and name is a clue for astute mystery aficionados.
Tenure hinges on Professor Neil Weber writing a “dissertation on bystander apathy,” inspired by witnessing a woman drown when he was six. Including Neil, no one tried to save her. “Writing” is a euphemism for monolithic writer’s block. Not a word has been composed, but then he notices a poster of missing student Lucia Vanotti. “Lucia had become a stand-in for everything that had gone wrong in my life.” Neil assuages his personal bystander guilt by investigating, which places him in the suspect seat.
"THE DEPARTMENT is over-the-top brilliant and intellectually intriguing, with a concussion-grenade conclusion. It is sure to earn an Anthony Award nomination, likely the Big Kahuna: Best First Novel."
Neil’s dumpy apartment “was a true testament to how far I’d fallen,” alongside his failed marriage with Phaedra Lewis. Both are philosophy professors at the same campus. Since philosophy is their gig, Phaedra writes, “[T]he work of mourning is always doomed to fail. One is marked by the loss of the other from the outset. There is no getting over loss. Loss is the condition of existence.” Neil fixates on visions of Phaedra, including her standing on a purple carpet of jacaranda blossoms in New Jersey.
The reader is volleyed between Neil and Lucia’s narration, then and now. Lucia is a complex character plagued by trauma, shame, guilt and ongoing self-doubt. She is a developed character with the insight of one who is twice her 20 years. The reader yearns to comfort her, though she projects a shield of defiance. Each character has strength and vulnerable weakness churning like the Pollock analogy.
This classic whodunit/whydunit with a stunning finale is also a tragic tale of loss and failed attempts at redemption. The reader becomes a student in the Philosophy department, or perhaps a guinea pig to be examined.
THE DEPARTMENT is over-the-top brilliant and intellectually intriguing, with a concussion-grenade conclusion. It is sure to earn an Anthony Award nomination, likely the Big Kahuna: Best First Novel.
Teaser
Philosophy professor Neil Weber can't think of one good reason to get up in the morning. His wife has left him, his academic research has sputtered, and the prospect of tenure is more remote than ever. Until Lucia Vanotti disappears. A college student at Neil’s Southern university, Lucia has a secret of her own --- one that haunts her relationships and leads to reckless, destructive behavior. When Neil is drawn into the mystery of her disappearance, he finds new energy, purpose and relevance. But at what cost? Each clue pulls him deeper into Lucia' s dark past, but also into the hidden lives of his closest friends and colleagues. What has driven Lucia to risk everything? And why does Neil, a professor who hardly knew her, care so deeply about finding her?
Promo
Philosophy professor Neil Weber can't think of one good reason to get up in the morning. His wife has left him, his academic research has sputtered, and the prospect of tenure is more remote than ever. Until Lucia Vanotti disappears. A college student at Neil’s Southern university, Lucia has a secret of her own --- one that haunts her relationships and leads to reckless, destructive behavior. When Neil is drawn into the mystery of her disappearance, he finds new energy, purpose and relevance. But at what cost? Each clue pulls him deeper into Lucia' s dark past, but also into the hidden lives of his closest friends and colleagues. What has driven Lucia to risk everything? And why does Neil, a professor who hardly knew her, care so deeply about finding her?
About the Book
Some secrets we keep even from ourselves.
Philosophy professor Neil Weber can't think of one good reason to get up in the morning. His wife has left him, his academic research has sputtered, and the prospect of tenure is more remote than ever.
Until Lucia Vanotti disappears.
A college student at Neil’s Southern university, Lucia has a secret of her own --- one that haunts her relationships and leads to reckless, destructive behavior. When Neil is drawn into the mystery of her disappearance, he finds new energy, purpose and relevance. But at what cost? Each clue pulls him deeper into Lucia' s dark past, but also into the hidden lives of his closest friends and colleagues.
What has driven Lucia to risk everything? And why does Neil, a professor who hardly knew her, care so deeply about finding her?
From campus classrooms to sex dens to backwoods hideaways, THE DEPARTMENT reveals the world through the dual perspectives of Lucia and Neil as they descend into obsession, delusion and the dangerous terrain of memory --- uncovering the traumas that drive them to behave in ways they never could have predicted or imagined.
