THE DEVIL AND WEBSTER is the latest novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz to take a look at contemporary campus issues. (I'd also recommend the author's ADMISSION, which has been adapted into a very good movie starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd.)

The novel follows Naomi Roth, the first female president of Webster College, as the college continues to evolve from its arch-conservative history into a far more modern, highly progressive institution. Certain hot-button issues are starting to bubble up quite prominently on campus, and a group stage a protest at the Stump.

Well-written, well-observed, and well-written. The author has a sharp eye for observation, but also a compassion for the characters that comes through nicely. I enjoyed this novel a great deal.

This was an interesting story, with issues and events that ring true today. I thought the premise was good, although practically speaking, I tend to enjoy books more with shorter paragraphs/more page breaks in them.

The dean of a liberal private college has tension building around social issues, and these rallies are held at a stump of a tree on campus that was quite old and important to the students/staff. Several narrators give an interesting perspective- walk in the others shoes. Decent book.

DNF.

This pains me, because I really enjoy Jean Hanff Korelitz's books, but I could not get into this one. I tried and tried, but I couldn't connect with it. I'll keep trying. Maybe some day in the future.

I did not leave a review on any platform.

Published by Grand Central Publishing on March 21, 2017

The Devil and Webster is a fascinating (if not entirely convincing) look at the liberal president of a highly-regarded liberal arts college as she is confronted with a crisis involving well-meaning students, a manipulative student activist, a professor who is denied tenure, and trustees who (apart from the right-wing trustee who despises her) are guardedly supportive of the president’s inclusive and understanding management style.

Naomi Roth is president of Webster College, a highly regarded institution that began to evolve a liberal tradition in the 1960s after departing from its former tradition as a party school for underperforming white racist males. As Dean of Women, Naomi gained respect by managing her first crisis: a biological woman who identifieD as a man chose to live in a traditionally all-female housing unit to the dismay of two of its other residents. After nine years as president, a new crisis emerges, one in which a Webster student named Hannah, who happens to be Naomi’s daughter, becomes deeply involved. Also involved is Omar Khayal, a student who was admitted because of his apparent ability to overcome hardships in the Middle East, but who isn’t doing well in most of his courses — apart from the top grades he receives from a professor who is being denied tenure due to lax scholarship and plagiarism.

Naomi is frustrated because the protesting students won’t meet with her and the tenure denial they are protesting is not something Naomi can explain without violating confidentiality rules and exposing Webster to a lawsuit. Much of the novel is devoted to Naomi’s response to the growing protest, an ugly campus incident, her deteriorating relationship with her daughter, and a collateral issue that is affecting her friendship with Webster’s Dean of Admissions.

Naomi is a decent person with strong progressive values, but she’s come up in an academic tradition that has blinded her to certain realities. She’s living a sheltered academic existence and while she is justly proud that Webster is tolerant and diverse and culturally sensitive, she’s not aware of what students are actually thinking. Only near the end of the novel, when a Native American conference that is meant to celebrate the school’s transformation is finally held, does Naomi come to realize that, despite her liberal values, she may be clueless about the lives of people who are not like her.

Or it may be that young people yearn to feel special, and airing unfounded grievances is a way to accomplish that goal. Naomi isn’t sure what to believe, but that’s the quandary we all share, living inside heads that can only hold one mind. And the point of higher education, the novel reminds us, is to make sure that mind is open to new ideas and possibilities. The important thing, one character suggests, is to take the long view, to realize we do what we can to make the world better, and that the world will keep on changing, and hopefully improving, long after we are gone.

I admire the story’s sense of atmosphere, its elegant prose, the careful attention to character. I felt little emotional connection to the plot. Like Naomi, the book is engulfed in its academic setting and perhaps a bit detached from life outside of that narrow prism. The plot is so carefully constructed that it never quite resonates as real. Some conflicts, particularly involving Omar, seem contrived, although other conflicts are more convincing. In the end, however, the storytelling has enough power and grace to earn an easy recommendation.

RECOMMENDED

Loved this book
Didn't want it to end
Highly recommended

Naomi Roth is the president of prestigious Webster College in Massachusetts, a two hundred and fifty year old institution that has weathered its share of controversy. Once the bastion of white and prosperous Christian males (minorities need not have applied in the past), Roth now prides herself on her school's reputation for academic excellence, intellectualism, open dialogue, and multiculturalism. Naomi, who is unmarried, has a daughter, Hannah, a sophomore at Webster. Everything seems to be going Naomi's way, until suddenly, it isn't.

When a popular black professor is denied tenure, a student protest erupts, spearheaded by a Palestinian student named Omar Khayul. Omar and his fellow demonstrators pitch tents on Webster's grounds, and refuse to communicate with the administration. Matters escalate, and Naomi, in spite of her tolerant attitude towards the protestors--she was an outspoken advocate for various causes back in the day--becomes the target of vicious and false attacks. Once the media outlets get wind of the story, Naomi fears that she will be unable to bring Webster back to a semblance of normalcy.

"The Devil and Webster," by Jean Hanff Korelitz, is an involving tale about a bright, self-confident, and forward thinking woman who is faced with a crisis she cannot handle. Truth, alas, is the first casualty when a war of words breaks out, and Naomi is hampered by the fact that the tenure process is confidential. The author, who writes intelligently thoughtfully, and elegantly, makes the point that being on the side of the angels does not protect an individual from false accusations and venomous attacks. We live in a rage-filled environment these days; everyone has his or her own agenda and fearlessly pursues it. Although we care about Naomi and admire her fortitude under fire, the book could have been even better had it been told in the first person from Naomi's perspective; had Korelitz filled in some glaring holes about Naomi's shadowy past; and had the author fleshed out certain characters, such as Omar Khayul and Naomi's friend, Francine, who is Webster's Dean of Admissions. Although it deals with meaningful themes concerning identity politics and the rebelliousness of youth, "The Devil and Webster" has an unfinished feel about it, as if some important matters were never adequately addressed.

Sorry - I really liked this author's first book, but just could not get into this one - really long paragraphs, little dialogue, took too long to get to the story - my apologies.

I really tried but I guess I'm just not a fan of Korelitz's novels. Disliked all three. Although she is a talented writer, not for me.

Jean Hanff Korelitz’s novel The Devil and Webster is a witty, wise and topical look at life on at a small, prestigious college campus. Dean Naomi Roth, the first female president at Webster College, “one of the most selective colleges in the nation,” made her career by the delicate handling of a potentially explosive situation. She came to the attention of the Board of Trustees for the manner in which she dealt with the uproar among the residents of the all-female Radclyffe Hall. Problems began when a female resident, Nell changed her name to Neil, and started undergoing gender change treatments. The female residents wanted Neil out, but he wanted to stay. It was a hot subject, the press became involved and while Neil argued discrimination, according to the female housemates:

This is a case of male penetration of a designated women-only space.

With disaster diplomatically averted, Naomi, Webster’s “first dedicated professor of feminist and gender studies,” had all the proper credentials, including past activism and was subsequently made the next president. She loves her job, and her large mansion (courtesy of the college) but there are rumblings on the campus which grow into a major PR catastrophe, disrupt her life and bring her deepest beliefs under scrutiny and into question.

Naomi’s troubles begin when students begin camping out at the Stump–historically the location for Webster student protests. The cause this time is student discontent over the very popular Professor Gall (a notoriously easy grader) not receiving tenure. Normally professors who don’t get tenure just quietly pack their bags and leave, but in the case of Professor Gall, students begin championing his cause by a building a camp at the Stump. Naomi knows that Gall hasn’t been granted tenure because he’s failed to publish and also because he’s committed the cardinal sin of plagiarism, but according to the legal department, she’s can’t publicly air these reasons.

The number of protestors at the Stump grows with students flooding in from other campuses. Parents begin complaining, the media gets involved and then all hell breaks loose….

In The Devil and Webster, author Jean Hanff Korelitz shows there are no sacred cows in academia. On one hand we have a college with a past which includes institutional racism and massive hypocrisy–an elite school in which money talks to the unacknowledged competitive admissions process, and a number of disenfranchised students are admitted and yet are not supposed to feel ‘token.’ Also addressed, very subtly, is the way in which sometimes violent (even murderous) revolutionary cred can trump academic achievements–this in the most established of establishments. And there’s another issue of ‘genteel’ protests–protests that make everyone (the participants and the establishment) feel enlightened and ‘involved.’

Whatever cause or grievance brought Webster students to the Stump, what happened once when they got there was always pretty much the same: a clear statement of purpose, a plainly identified leader, and lines of communication smartly established with Webster’s president, whoever he was at the time, after which that president would at least pretend to consider the students’ demands or sympathize with their feelings. But then, once the protesters had picketed a trustees’ retreat or a commencement to emphasize their point, the students would always just … go away.

In the protest under scrutiny, student leader Omar doesn’t play by these genteel rules; he plays dirty, and Naomi finds the old methods of dealing with students doesn’t work in Omar’s case. …

This rich and topical novel skewers academia, its highly competitive selection process, along with the wealthy who buy an ‘authentic,’ culturally aware experience for their children that raises consciousness but only safely within their economic boundaries. The book argues that in the current campus culture of identify and identification, division inevitably results:

A basketball player from Georgia or a robotics whiz from northern New Jersey? An equestrian who’d bring her own horse (and a strongly hinted at donation to campus) or a waif from Bangladesh who was being sponsored by a famous tech philanthropist? How could you weigh innovation against opportunity? How could you put a value on simple security-the experience of growing up in a stable society with guaranteed schooling-when others had no such thing?

The author has fun with all sides of the debate here. From Naomi listening to NPR and Garrison Keillor’s “narcotic” voice while serving her daughter “humanely euthanized fish in good conscience, to old-school Professor Russell who believes the protest is “the inevitable result of years of capitulation to liberal idiocy.” While the figures of both Omar and Gall remain disappointingly murky, the author raises many issues pertinent to the nepotism, privilege, politics and mission of university campuses.

Entertaining novel, particularly of interest to those who live in college towns or work in academia, that also takes on issues of race and identity.

She has never strived for this job, but Naomi Roth has become the first female president of Webster College almost 20 years ago. With her daughter Hannah she has moved to the small place and turned the school into a competitor of the Ivy League Colleges. Admittedly, she was proud when also her daughter decided not to choose one of the big names but her college for her studies. When the popular lecturer Nicholas Gall is denied tenure track, students organize protest against the college’s administration. What Naomi welcomes first as a sign of caring and standing up for your believes gradually transforms into the worst crisis the college has ever seen. The leader of the student group is a young Palestinian student, Omar Khayal, who not only is charismatic and can thus easily gather people behind him but also has a history which is embraced by the media to cover the story: he fled the Israeli bombings which killed his family and made his way to one of the top schools, and now they want to expel him because he is fighting for his teacher – who is of African-American descent. A scandal is quickly produced and Naomi not only has to sail against the wind of the board but also of her own daughter who positions herself on the opposite side.

Jean Hanff Korelitz’s novel starts slowly, we get a thorough picture of Naomi and Hannah’s life and relationship and also an idea of how Naomi’s situation at Webster was before the crisis. She appears to be strong and clever and cannot easily be shaken. Yet, this situation brings her to the brink of professional destruction and personal despair. The way the relationships become increasingly complicated is narrated in a convincing way. It is not only between mother and daughter, but also between Naomi and long-time friends that things get ever more difficult until all the years of their friendship are questioned. I really liked the protagonist because she is depicted as a complex character who is not without flaws but has clear convictions and a strong sense of justice and objectivity. On the other hand, she is also doubting and asking herself if she really can live up to her ideas and actually treats the students in a fair way.

Apart from his interesting study in the characters, the most striking aspect of the novel is how the truth can be bent according to one’s necessities. It is clear from the beginning that Nicholas Gall not only is culpable of plagiarism but also lacks all academic standards, neither did he publish something nor does he show adequate behaviour. Yet, Naomi’s morals hinder her from revealing anything of the secret tenure track process and she does not want to publish the lecturer’s misconduct. Without this knowledge, things seem to be quite different for the students and the media. However, the witch-hunt really starts with the story of the poor, heart-breaking Palestinian who had to go through so much in life and deserves to be supported not to be thrown out – but again, the public is not aware of Omar’s poor academic results and like in any other case, the college has to take action. Who can you defend your decisions if your strongest arguments cannot be said out aloud?

It wouldn’t a novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz if there wasn’t a lot more to be revealed. Towards the end, the author has some nasty surprises for the reader which again offer another perspective on how things really are. I really appreciate her skill of playing tricks on the reader since it is great entertainment to uncover the different layers of the story.

Thanks Grand Central Publishing and netgalley for this ARC.

If only it was a farce but it's real life for our heroine, so does she overcome? Contemporary fiction at its best.

I liked the beginning part of the book focusing on the transexual. When the story sequed into the professor being denied tenure, the booj lost somd steam. All in all, I liked the book.

A satirical look at an exclusive liberal arts conclave in Massachusetts makes for a good read. Deborah Spar, the outgoing president of Barnard, was mentioned in the acknowledgments and I was thinking that this might have been even better if it was an all female college. The school president is a former gender studies professor who spent the beginning of her adulthood in an unhappy VISTA experience in New Hampshire. Naomi has a daughter who attends Webster and their relationship is lovely until the trouble starts and then it is a symbol for how everything can go wrong very quickly. A professor is denied tenure and a student from Palestine become the focal point around which all manner of negativity and dissatisfaction land in Naomi's lap. All is not what it appears to be as we know so well from being part of any institution. Reading about the characters is fun and sad and rings true.

I thoroughly enjoyed this riff on the upper echelon of higher education.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing (March 21st 2017).

What a disappointing read. I felt like I had to slog through the first few pages just so I could get a feel for the book. I wound up DNFing it.

I love everything Jean Hanff Korelitz has written and THE DEVIL AND WEBSTER confirms my view. Korelitz has written a novel which sadly reflects the internal workings of many colleges. The fictional Webster is a small, idyllic, liberal arts school located in woodsy New England, headed by an unlikely president, Naomi Roth.

As a person who works in a university the background is all too familiar. The overly entitled students, the easily triggered search for political correctness are familiar elements to all of us who work at the university level.

Roth and her daughter Hannah face off at opposite sides of a student demonstration caused by denial of tenure to an utterly unqualified teacher, lead by a Palestinian student with a deeply sad history and a startling degree of charisma.

The book draws us into the unfolding drama, ancillary characters are involved in the plot. Each description, though short, paints a clear portrait of all the people involved in what turns out to be a major, and disturbing, event.

Naomi is unfairly attacked on all sides, including by her own daughter, but she cannot defend herself within the constraints of academic policy. The book ends with a rather shocking denouement which is totally believable, though unexpected.

I found this a totally engaging book which I will urge all my colleagues to read, but you don't have to be a member of a university faculty to love this book, it will appeal to many of us. I cannot praise this more highly, enjoy it.

I've been in academia my entire adult life. While Korelitz portrays some aspects accurately, her story calls for so much exaggeration and antics that are over the top to leave what could have been a good and believable story in shambles. No president of a contemporary college would have had such support from her board of trustees, but then no president would have had to tolerate such a long list of issues that while important represent only a fraction of her work. Korelitz neatly ties up all the loose ends that will only unravel in the next unwritten chapter. I was not disappointed to read in her afterword that this is the last we'll see of Naomi.

This may be one of the worst books I've read. Seriously, it was so wordy, that it was hard to wade through it.
Everything was a struggle here. Wouldn't recommend it at all!

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This was a fun read--a great send-up of the academic environment. I did find the ending somewhat disappointing.

Review copy provided by publisher.