A frank but discursive fictional look at an underappreciated profession.
A series of interconnected short stories recount the highs and lows of a teaching career.
Scott Robinson, an apprehensive young Midwesterner, transplants himself to West London to teach high school English and American literature. In 20 tightly linked but meandering tales, Newton (Poetica Rex, 2013, etc.), a poet and retired high school teacher, highlights Scott’s struggles in and out of the classroom as he adjusts to life in bustling London: “[The] city tempo infused Scott with a certain amount of élan, some bravado and new zest for risk….He was plugging into the juice of the metropolis and enjoying close proximity to the glitterati, the glamour of major players.” In fact, Scott is just scraping by, constantly questioning his profession but having invested himself too deeply to turn back. During a “Parents Night” event, he sits alone at a table in the hallway, grading papers, when “suddenly he wanted to be left alone, to day-dream about the weekend coming or a nice hot whiskey drink before bed.” The generally unfocused stories tend to spiral into digressions without context, including a sudden revelation that Scott, despite his overt bachelorhood, has a daughter. A characteristic story, “A Season Travel Pass,” opens with Scott reflecting on the London Tube before straying into thoughts on the Magna Carta, his realization that he’s attracted to the French teacher, and memories of a student field trip to the Globe Theatre. The frequently redundant tales emphasize Scott’s near-misadventures, but they might have been more engaging if they’d driven Scott to make important decisions; instead, the stories are often cut safely but unsatisfyingly short. Punctuation and grammar errors, including misused semicolons, add to the confusion—particularly in a book about an English teacher. That said, Scott’s lyrical insights into the awkwardness of standing speechless before an unruly class, his triumphs as a teacher and father, or even his eagerness to get something to drink, make this collection worth reading. Taken together, the stories singularly depict the inherent snags that many teachers face but few discuss.
A frank but discursive fictional look at an underappreciated profession.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2009
ISBN: 978-1449008703
Page Count: 400
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Long, slow stretches mar a novel that portrays life in the English countryside during the early days of World War II.
Injured fighter pilot Mark Brabham recuperates at his uncle’s home in rural England in this World War II historical novel.
While the men (and some women) fought, those left behind (the old, the young and the female) did what they could to keep the home front secure, including guarding the coast and rooting out spies and enemy insurgents. Brabham, a Royal Air Force fighter pilot who learned to fly at his grandfather’s knee, eagerly enlisted in the RAF when he came of age but was shot down two months after joining his squadron. After his badly burned body had time to heal, the rest of his recuperation was spent at his pastor uncle’s home at Lavering-on-Sea. In short order, he was put to work helping out as much as a severely burned soldier could. In between trips back to the hospital, he spent his days leading the Scouts, helping to patrol the coastlines, and spending time with Elizabeth, a working-class evacuee who was working at a local farm and leading the Girl Scout troop. There are periods of excitement here, so the author clearly knows how to build tension, but it often takes too long for something to actually happen. Summers clearly cares about his subject; he offers a rare glimpse into life on the home front—from patrolling the beach to gas and meat rations to the town’s easy acceptance of London evacuees. He also has a strong protagonist in brave, personable Mark.
Long, slow stretches mar a novel that portrays life in the English countryside during the early days of World War II.Pub Date: Nov. 23, 2010
ISBN: 978-1452072326
Page Count: 396
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A bracing homage to Homer and the Greeks.
A rollicking new chapter in an ambitious, multivolume extrapolation on Greek myth.
For those who slept through Classics 101: The Iliad tells the story of the Trojan War, an epic conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans during which the Greeks besieged Troy in an effort to save Helen, a beautiful woman who had been captured and held by the Trojan Paris. In the third installment of this particular story, the hero Petraeus attempts to complete his unlikely transformation from slave to king in a seven-book series existing in the same universe as Homer’s classic. Johnson’s novel takes place in between the kidnapping of Helen and the beginning of the war; in it, the Greek king Agamemnon asks the up-and-coming hero Petraeus to pursue Paris and Helen and retrieve the Greek beauty. However, if the novel owes much of its substance to the Iliad, it takes its form from Homer’s other great epic, the Odyssey. Like this second pillar of ancient Greek literature, this novel tells the story of an epic sea voyage that sends its hero careening around the Mediterranean on his winding way to track down the lost pair. During his entertaining, circuitous journey, Petraeus solves a murder, cavorts with Amazons, receives gifts from the Egyptian pharaoh Ramasses, and survives a brush with death at the hands of the evil Ba’al. Most of Johnson’s fresh tale is of his own making, but it takes enough cues from standard Greek lore that mythology buffs will have fun tracking down his more oblique references. Furthermore, though his story is epic in scope, Johnson’s attention to detail imbues his novel a pleasant sense of balance. His brief but thorough meditations on the art of shipbuilding or the intricacies of ancient commerce are as fulfilling as his rip-roaring stories of naval battles, bounty hunters and skin-of-the-teeth escapes.
A bracing homage to Homer and the Greeks.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1456771225
Page Count: 239
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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