Freshman — Michael Gerber

Hart Fox may not have the pedigree to be a shoo-in at Stutts, a prestigious Ivy League school, but he has the grades and the rsum. And he does make it in sort of. His acceptance is hijacked by Burlington Darlington III, a wealthy alum running for governor who is so desperate to get his hapless son, Trip, into Stutts that he funds a new chemistry building. Darlington also offers to get Hart a spot in the freshman class and pay his way, if Hart will take all Trips classes for him. Despite this deal with the devil, in September Hart walks onto the Stutts campus jubilant. But what awaits him is a strange parallel universe of secret societies, class hierarchies, and inexplicable traditions. On any given day at Stutts, the Math Department may discover that the number nine doesnt really exist; an English professor may prove that Shakespeares plays were penned by a pot-bellied pig; or worried grad students might be chasing an escaped black hole.Hart dreams of building his rsum at the college newspaper. But instead, he finds himself aligned with the outcasts at an all-but-defunct school humor magazine. Along the way he learns about the joys of decimating beer-can pyramids and the horror of being rusticated, and, even falls in lovewith a preppy vampire.Groundbreaking, hilarious, and surprising, Freshman marks the teen-fiction debut of a gifted writer.