The Allure of the Campus Novel
Why schools provide such fertile ground for fiction: Your weekly guide to the best in books
Why are so many writers drawn to campus novels? that the genre is “escape reading.” Citing older works such as and , Marshall sees many college novels as “fumbling and sophomoric confessionals.” That’s certainly changed. Campus novels today have expanded beyond the confines of the Ivy League and deal with some of our society’s most pressing questions. From early education to university, schools provide rich dramatic fodder for stories about intellectual exploration but also relationships, politics, gender, and creativity. They are where we spend most of the intense, formative days
