Still In Love: A Novel

Description

This hilarious, sometimes harrowing, and ultimately heartening novel is the companion to the critically acclaimed, national bestseller Perfect Agreement "Beautifully and economically written, and very funny." -Linda Wertheimer, NPR This is your chance to enroll in English 10 at highly rated Hellman College-if you can find a place to sit in the fantastically overcrowded classroom. Mark Sternum, whom readers first met in Downing's beloved novel Perfect Agreement, is a veteran teacher. Twenty years older, separated for six months from his longtime lover, and desperate to duck the overtures of double-dealing deans above him and disgruntled adjunct faculty below him, Mark has one ambition every day he is on campus-to close the classroom door and leave the world behind. His escape, however, is complicated by his contentious, complicated wrestling match of a relationship with the Professor, the tenured faculty member with whom Mark has co-taught this creative-writing workshop for ten years. The spectacle of their rigorous, academic relationship is a chance for students-all of us-to learn what an amazing arena the classroom can be. Replete with engaging writing exercises, harsh criticism, and contrarian advice, Still in Love is the story of one semester in a college classroom. And it is an urgent reminder that we desperately need classrooms, that those singular, sealed-off-from-the-world sanctuaries are where we learn to love our lives.

Michael Downing's novels include the national bestseller Perfect Agreement, named one of the 10 Best Books of the year by Amazon and Newsday, and Breakfast with Scot, a comedy about two gay men who inadvertently become parents. An American Library Association honor book, Breakfast with Scot was adapted as a movie that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. His nonfiction includes Shoes Outside the Door- Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center, hailed by the New York Review of Books as a "dramatic and insightful" narrative history of the first Buddhist monastery outside of Asia, and by the Los Angeles Times as "a highly readable book." His essays and reviews appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and other periodicals. Michael teaches creative writing at Tufts University. He and his partner have lived together in Cambridge for more than 25 years.

Praise for Still in Love "Beautifully and economically written, and very funny." -Linda Wertheimer, NPR "Downing's witty follow-up to Perfect Agreement satisfyingly transports readers to college as teacher Mark Sternum begins winter term at Hellman College in New England . . . In depicting Mark's ordinary semester, Downing poignantly illustrates the dynamics of the college classroom as well as its potential for lasting lessons, making for a resonant campus novel." -Publishers Weekly "Though this is a stand-alone, Downing's loyal readers will appreciate the depth and breadth of Mark's character arc more than 20 years after his introduction, in Perfect Agreement (1997). Depicting striving adjuncts, grade-grubbing students, and smug professors, Downing fearlessly pokes at the least glamorous aspects of academia. Fans of Richard Russo, Francine Prose, and Julie Schumacher's Dear Committee Members (2014) will enjoy Downing's clear-eyed view from the ivory tower." -Booklist "By means both wry and warm, Michael Downing elucidates the meaning of the classroom-its space for reflection, rumination, and pause-in a world that doesn't seem to be stopping. Still in Love reminds me why he was one of my favorite professors ever." -Melissa Broder, author of The Pisces "Brilliantly sly and ferociously precise. Michael Downing writes about the idiosyncrasies, possibilities, and limitations of the classroom with wit and rare tenderness. Still in Love is a joy." -Jennifer duBois, author of Cartwheel and A Partial History of Lost Causes "This novel is a treasure-at once hilariously funny and genuinely moving. Downing gently pokes fun at university politics and the comedy of manners that every teacher witnesses on a daily basis. But don't be fooled by the laughs. It is also a subtle, exquisite love letter to teaching, students, and the sacred space of the classroom." -Alexandra Zapruder, author of Twenty-Six Seconds "Still in Love is a rare occurrence in the book world, a lyrical and compassionate novel that is whip-smart and laugh-out-loud funny. And filled with terrific characters-a whole college classroom full, each more irresistible than the last. In conferences, lessons, and hallways chats, Downing captures the alchemy of teaching and learning. Along the way, he sounds the complex notes of race, beauty, heartbreak, grammar, gender, mortal illness, and growing up, but we never feel instructed, only enlightened. And deeply moved. Anyone who teaches anything should read this. (And for those in the business, the writing exercises included here are the best I've ever found.) But so should anyone who cares about young people, and learning, and love." -Michelle Blake, author of the acclaimed Lily Connor mysteries