Campus Fictions: Exemption and the American Campus Novel - Hardcoverby Wesley Beal (Author) Campus Fictions argues that the academic novel balances utopian and regressive tendencies, reinforcing the crises we face in higher learning while simultaneously signposting hope for a worn institution. Whether a bestseller such as Erich Segal 's romance Love Story (1970) or wonkier fare such as Don DeLillo's White Noise (1985), the academic novel mystifies the academy not only to a wide public but also worse to readers who