Lucinda Bites Back

Lucinda treats email like rotting fish—something to deal with immediately. Unfortunately, this creates the illusion of competence that vaults her into the role of Interim Department Chair at a prestigious Southern university in this very smart and very funny campus comedy.

Poor Lucinda Aragón. A working-class Latina and first-generation college graduate, with a “please-leave-me-alone” personality—all she wanted was to meander through the national arboretum of Fluitt University’s campus, minding her own business and quietly planning the stories she writes. But while suffering brain-freeze caused by a strawberry-kiwi smoothie, she consents to lead her department during the permanent chair’s sabbatical.

Thrust into a feudal system comprised of overlords in finance, officious deans, and contentious academics, Lucinda is forced out of her comfortable shadow life. While limping around in an orthopedic “Franken-boot,” she must fight to protect the Latinx Studies program she built, manage a non-receptive receptionist, deal with an adjunct-despising dean, and handle an ever-growing number of misbehaving colleagues.

Lorraine López delivers a seriously hilarious look at contemporary academia. Through Lucinda’s brilliant and cynical internal monologue, the novel explores the heavy administrative caretaking roles thrust upon women of color, the comedy of departmental crossfires, and the beautiful liberation of entering your sixties on your own terms.

For fans of Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher and Straight Man by Richard Russo, Lucinda Bites Back is a deliciously textured treat.