Abstract
Auggie’s Revenge is Alex Kudera’s comic crime novel about academic labor in urban America. In the city of brotherly unemployment, instructor of philosophy Michael Vittinger shares an adjuncts’ office far removed from any full-time or tenure-track position. After more than a decade of teaching, Michael still lives paycheck-to-supermarket in a small studio apartment. In the following excerpt, Vittinger gets stood up at the bar by his girlfriend, encounters less fortunate street dwellers on his way to securing affordable comestibles at the local convenience store, and retires for the evening to watch frisky bears on late-night television.