Katy Ross, professor of Spanish, will facilitate the Fall 2017 Virtual Book Club. Dr. Ross has selected the non-fiction novel, The Devil and Webster  by Jean Hanff Korelitz, for the Alumni Association’s first book selection. Book club participants will meet in an online discussion through Google Classroom. The online discussion will take place between Nov. 8-14, 2017, allowing readers to participate daily (or as their schedule allows). Click here to join the Fall 2017 Book Club. Upon registration, you will receive additional details and instructions. Alumni participants must provide their own copy of the book. Please email Megan Frisque with questions.

Dr. Ross shares why she selected The Devil and Webster:

“When I first read Jean Hanff Korelitz’s sixth novel, The Devil and Webster, I wondered if people outside of academia would enjoy this read as much as I had. Set on a college campus, the book tells the story of a newly instated female college president who has to face a student protest on campus over a professor who has been denied tenure. The novel deals with many hot topic issues about identity and politics. Here’s a great piece from NPR talking about the book. I think this novel will appeal to anyone who is interested in what’s happening on college campuses today, to people who enjoy a well-written book with a twist at the end, and to those who like to read fictional novels.”

Summary from Amazon.com:

“Naomi Roth is the first female president of Webster College, a once conservative school now known for producing fired-up, progressive graduates. So Naomi isn’t surprised or unduly alarmed when Webster students begin the fall semester with an outdoor encampment around “The Stump”-a traditional campus gathering place for generations of student activists-to protest a popular professor’s denial of tenure. A former student radical herself, Naomi admires the protestors’ passion, especially when her own daughter, Hannah, joins their ranks. 

Then Omar Khayal, a charismatic Palestinian student with a devastating personal history, emerges as the group’s leader, and the demonstration begins to consume Naomi’s life, destabilizing Webster College from the inside out. As the crisis slips beyond her control, Naomi must take increasingly desperate measures to protect her friends, colleagues, and family from an unknowable adversary. 

Touching on some of the most topical and controversial concerns at the heart of our society, this riveting novel examines the fragility that lies behind who we think we are-and what we think we believe.”