My Oxford Year: A Novel

When Ella first arrives in England, she gets a call from Gavin Brookdale, the former White House chief of staff, who offers her a job with Janet Wilkes’s presidential campaign. He tells Ella that the Rhodes Scholarship does not need to be completed to provide clout in politics, asking Ella why she is studying literature. Ella responds: “Because I want to?” and thinks: “Why does it come out as a question?” (8), opening the novel with a sense of uncertainty regarding personal desire. This early moment establishes one of the book’s central binaries—public ambition versus private longing—as Ella feels compelled to justify her intellectual life in terms of political utility. Ella agrees to work with Gavin and Janet while studying, but she begins her journey with a central conflict between her career and her personal desires. This conflict carries the first section of the novel, as Ella tries to balance constant calls and emails from Gavin against the reading, writing, and socialization of her Oxford life and education. Whelan uses this balance to prepare the reader Ella’s choices later in the novel, as she continues to try to keep her career in her field of view without losing sight of the value of her Oxford experience.