My Oxford Year: A Novel

Ella is a 24-year-old American education consultant who comes to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship to study Victorian literature. As a child, Ella was close to her father, who died in a car accident on Ella’s 13th birthday. This event defines Ella’s development prior to the beginning of the novel, as she says it forced her to take on more responsibility in her home, including taking care of her mother. As such, Ella devoted herself to schoolwork, excelled in higher education, and participated in multiple political campaigns as a consultant. When Ella arrives in Oxford, this past is encompassed in the call she receives from Gavin Brookdale, who offers her a consulting position with Janet Wilkes’s presidential campaign. However, going to Oxford is a remnant of Ella’s former self, since she used the fantasy of Oxford to distract from her grief over her father’s death. This clash of career and desire is what defines Ella’s character for much of the novel. Though Ella was an excellent student in the US, she struggles with Oxford’s teaching methods, which highlights how she has internalized a specific, high-achieving pattern of behavior that does not work in every situation.

Ella is the