A Veteran Teacher Pens a Not-Your-Typical Novel About Schools. And That’s a Good Thing

Rick Hess:

There aren’t many good novels about K-12 schooling. I tend to think this is for the same reason there aren’t a lot of good novels about sports. With sports, the story usually comes down to a big game. Win or lose, the tropes are familiar. And the emphasis on cathartic victory or growth-inducing loss leaves little room for character depth, complexity, or whimsy.

Novels about schooling suffer from a similar problem. They’re usually about a teacher’s heroic journey or success in helping that hard-to-reach kid. The themes are worn-out, and the tales tend to feature the moral complexity of a grade-B Western.

Well, Class Dismissed ditches the familiar school novel formula, and it pays off nicely. Published last year by 30-year teaching veteran Kevin McIntosh, who has authored Pushcart Prize-nominated short stories, Class Dismissed traces the eventful journey of high school teacher Patrick Lynch from Minnesota to New York—and then back to Minnesota.