Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror

This collection of 3 interconnected novellas set in academia was a highly entertaining read. The felines creeping through the text were not all that earned this work a comparison to Poe. Suspenseful and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

This was a great book. I don't write reviews much, but this one was worth writing in about. The cat story had me looking at our cats in a different way for a few hours after I finished it. Apparently this author's sinister portrayal in the first story got to me a little.

"Publish & Perish" by Professor Hynes is a collection of three interconnected novellas. Whereas other authors often write according to the expectations of the public, James Hynes discovers new lands, and is not afraid to paint the world as it really is. Snip: (...)

I loved the suspense in the first novella. I am primarily a reader of nonfiction but in my infrequent fiction forays, I am a fan of mysteries and suspense in academic settings. It was so much fun wondering what this cat would do next! I looked forward to reading this book every night. Hynes does such a wonderful job of characterizing both the cat and the husband. As I read about the husband, I kept finding myself saying, "This guy is _such_ a jerk!" Wasn't the indoor beach party just too funny!? And the characterization of Kymberly was also hilarious. The idea that she'd have her own talk show, a communications graduate student...and even the "y" in the name. Having been there (communications graduate studies), I certainly agree that Hynes knows his stuff. It would be hard to live up to "Queen of the Jungle" and I must admit I didn't enjoy the second novella as much as the first. I'm almost through with the third one. I also enjoyed the review of this book by the NYTimes...

What fun! Glorious revenge at the dissertation committee, the dead white male in every department, the struggling academic spouse, the sheer terror of upcoming tenure reviews. And so insightful to pomo politics. Hynes manages a dig at everyone (I'm an anthropologist, and he got us). I'm reminded a bit of Pynchon -- Hynes really knows his stuff, and thus he's able to twist academic rhetoric and genuine knowledge into comic parody and horror