Book Review: Campusland | Scott Johnston

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I selected Campusland by Scott Johnston, but I ended up loving this brilliant work of satire focused on the over-the-top and often sanctimonious “woke” culture of the elite Ivy-league campuses. Come for the laugh-out-loud moments and stay for the accurate social commentary on these elite institutions, who may at times go a bit too far for the sake of proving how progressive and socially-conscious they are. I loved it!

About the Book

A tumultuous and often hilarious first novel about one year of insanity at the Ivy-like Devon University, a blissful bubble of elite students and the adults at their mercy.

Eph Russell is an English professor up for tenure. He may look and sound privileged, but Eph is right out of gun-rack, Bible-thumping rural Alabama. His beloved Devon, though, has become a place of warring tribes, and there are landmines waiting for Eph that he is unequipped to see. The cultural rules are changing fast.

Lulu Harris is an entitled freshman—er, firstyear—from Manhattan. Her singular ambition is to be a prominent socialite – an “It Girl.” While most would kill for a place at Devon, to her college is a dreary impediment. She is pleasantly surprised to find some people she can tolerate in the Fellingham Society, a group of self-professed campus monarchists. When things become socially difficult, Lulu is forced to re-channel her ambition in a most unexpected way – as a militant feminist. In the process, she and Eph will find their fates at odds.

Also in the mix is Red Wheeler, who is in his seventh year at Devon, and is carefully managing his credits to stay longer. As the alpha dog atop Devon’s progressive hierarchy, Red is the most “woke” guy on campus. But when his position is threatened, he must take measures.

All paths collide in a riotous climax. Campusland is a timely and gleeful skewering of the modern American campus and its tribal culture. 

Reflection

I’m shocked this book hasn’t received more attention and accolades. I found it brilliant! Having attended an elite private college in the Pacific Northwest with similar “woke” culture, I laughed so many times while reading this. Scott Johnston does a brilliant job of showing how what often starts as well-intentioned movements can be taken (particularly in these sorts of campuses) to the extreme, where the actual purpose of the cause is often lost by the theatrics surrounding the faux-activism.

Centering around English professor Eph Russell who is hoping to achieve tenure in the current academic year, Campusland delves into the question of what happens when campus culture is taken too far, and rational thought is replaced by fear of backlash from cancel culture.

Eph is from rural Alabama, not the norm for the elite professors at Devon University. But Eph also stands out as the most rational, fair, and open-minded character in the novel. He strives to be simply a good professor, and challenge his students to learn from the great writers throughout history. But he is no match for the university administration, who jump at the slightest hint of pushback from cancel culture sweeping the student population.

There is a particularly humorous exchange between a student and Eph in a chapter aptly names “I feel like”, when the student articulates how she feels upset that the curriculum in in Eph’s course on 19^th Century Romanticism and Realism lacks enough minority representation. Eph points out that this is the consensus about the great works from that period in history, and the student responds “Whose consensus? Other people of privilege? I think we all know the answer to that, don’t we?”

Meanwhile the book is peppered with other narrators from the campus, including the President of the University, a privileged white student who fakes a stint of activism to gain a social media following and leads people to falsely believe she was sexually assaulted (a belief she does nothing to correct), a black student activist named Red who spends his time searching for the next cause he can highlight, and the head of the university’s bias response team (a team of one) who pretends to represent a larger team while unilaterally making decisions.

One of the key messages of the book is whether some institutions like the fictional Devon may have gone so far that we are now in a classic case of the lunatics running the asylum. Where the fear of not being progressive enough has now led the administration to act without thought or investigation, often undermining the integrity of the causes they are seeking to support and leading innocent people to be collateral damage. Ironically, the most open and honest character who seeks to learn and be a better ally is Eph, the rural southern white male professor. There is also great contrast to the faux activists who lead many of the problematic scenarios in other students, who show up to support and advocate for real issues that matter, but are drowned out by the spectacle made by the other events of the novel.

A brilliant work of satirical fiction that hits close to home. I loved it!

Thank you to St Martin’s Press for my copy. Opinions are my own.