Family Ties

I am sitting on the subway, reading with horror and fascination. Is this how it really was? I ask myself.

Miriam Moscowitz, the main character of Cary Fagan’s new book, The Student, is in her final year studying English at the University of Toronto. It is the 1950s, and she has asked her professor for a recommendation letter:

He avoided looking at her but took the pipe from his mouth. “Whatever for?”

The question took her aback. “Well, to do my Masters and then my PhD.”

“No, no, I mean whatever do you want to do a PhD for? To spend several years of your life, not to mention the valuable resources of this university, for nothing?”

I make a note in the margins: I must ask someone. Is this what really happened? “You certainly can’t expect to be hired by any of the other colleges,” her professor says in so many words. As a Jew, the subtext reads, she stands no chance of a...