Some Guys Have All the Luck

While I did not ultimately like Danny Tobey's debut novel, The Faculty Club, I must confess that I may have been colored by the author bio. It reads "Danny Tobey is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School." Some guys have all the luck, right? It's pretty easy to hate a guy like this without knowing anything else about him, isn't it?
The novel begins with a flashback from the narrator recounting his parent's reaction to his acceptance into law school. Curiously the author refers to the school as "the greatest law school in the world, but doesn't name it. In fact, when the narrator describes the tour guide and the three lies associated with the founder of this particular school, he is actually referring to Harvard University. So the novel seems to be set at Harvard, though Tobey is rather vague on some of these details. I'm not sure why. The protagonist is Jeremy Davis, a first year law student who stayed at home because of his father's illness. Davis now finds himself surrounded by academic superstars who are Rhodes Scholars and have class, sophistication, and money well beyond his own.
He finds himself thrown into the company of three other students: Nigel, a young wealthy Black British student who first befriends Jeremy; John, a charismatic Harvard grad and Rhodes Scholar; and Daphne, a fantastically beautiful Yale grad and Rhodes Scholar as well.
Soon, Jeremy finds himself working for the distinguished Professor Ernesto Bernini who had formally been U.S. Attorney General, and competing with his new friends for 3 spots in an secretive, exclusive, and potentially dangerous club. When Jeremy is seemingly rejected from this club, he finds himself determined to find out what this club is all about and to potentially expose its secret rituals. He finds himself asking an old high school friend Miles to help him out. Miles seemingly knows everyone at this school and helps to introduce Jeremy to a somewhat shady character named Chance who is a reporter of sorts.
Before Jeremy was excluded from his candidacy to this club, he mets an older gentleman who seems to have a rather unusual if not macabre fascination with human skulls and crypts. This leads Jeremy, Miles, and Chance on a search to find the headquarters of the secret club called V & D.
When Jeremy was still competing for V & D, he and Daphne had teamed up to win the Mock Trial competition, defeating Nigel and John in the process. To do this, he had to basically expose a med student as a fraud who used her father's connections to cover up her academic deficiencies. To make matters worse, Jeremy and this med student, Sarah had met each other socially prior to the mock trial and left a possible relationship hanging in the air after a chance meeting.
After learning that his actions contributed to Sarah's suicide attempt, Jeremy tries to make amends, which are eventually accepted by Sarah who then becomes romantically involved with Jeremy. She too joins the other three in search of V & D.
These portions of the novel are well-rendered and plausible, if a bit imitative. However, the novel flounders as we get close to the climax involving the V & D. Here Tobey introduces a mishmash of medieval alchemy, voodoo, and a quest for immortality that truly doesn't hold together. Though we learn about the purpose of the V &  D, there is considerable vagueness regarding the society and what Tobey calls "the sun pole."
We have a relatively happy ending, but an unsatisfactory ending to a novel that began with a very intriguing premise.
If you are curious about the inner workings of the Ivy League, this novel is for you. I think Tobey might have had a better book had he not tried to be so ambitious with his plot.
Better luck next time, Harvard.

Czar