Lesson Plan was years in the making. My first version of it was completed seven years ago. Needless to say it was turned down by one and all. I forgot about it and moved on to other projects. I finished another novel a year ago and started sending out query letters for it. Meanwhile I "dusted off" Lesson Plan and took a look at it. I had two initial reactions: one, it stunk, two, it had enormous potential. Last Spring and Summer I took a hammer, chisel and sandblaster to it and turned the sow's ear into what I believe to be a silk purse.
Lesson Plan is set in a Berkeley middle school that is quite like the one where I taught for nearly 20 years. It takes place in 1999. The novel's prologue is the first few seconds after a grizzly shooting that has left one person dead. But the book mostly concerns itself with the two weeks leading up to this tragedy as seen through the lives of six main characters. One of the characters is a history teacher named Charlie Grant who bears a slight resemblance to yours truly. He is being threatened for termination because of a short temper that he inflicts on students (unlike me) but he is a dedicated educator (like me). Charlie Grant suffers from severe panic disorder (like me) was raised by a paranoid schizophrenic mother (like me) is divorced (unlike me). A second character is the school's vice principal, a woman who is also divorced but whose real pain started with the death of her lover, another woman. The only thing she hates worse than her job is not working at all. A third adult character is a young man with serious mental/emotional issues who has gone off his meds. He lives across the street from the school and becomes entwined -- in odd ways -- with a student and an employee of the school.
Three students make up the other main characters. John Henry is a precocious 8th grader who has skipped two grades and whose intellectual capacity actually qualifies him for high school. As our story begins John Henry has recently discovered the fairer sex and has become obsessed with sex in general and a few of his female classmates in particular. Ricky Bresnahan is a popular boy who is a soccer star. His pursuits include the cutest girl in the school and getting high. The cross Ricky has to bear is his intrusive parents who he worries will discover his pot supply. The third student is Jimmy Hart an African American boy who dreams of playing in the NBA. However he struggles with grades and thus remaining eligible for the team. He is also exploring issues around race.
A few other students are also introduced including one who is being sexually assaulted by her step father and another who discovers she is John Henry's object of desire.
The lives of all the principal characters intersect on the day of the shooting.
Lesson Plan explores issues of isolation, changing relationships, finding one's place in society and feeling alone and different.
The book is based in large part on my own experiences working at a middle school.
I'm very proud of Lesson Plan. I believe it is an honest book that will in many ways be relatable to people of all ages and backgrounds and I also believe it will shed light on the middle school experience as it is for students, staff and society. I mean it to be a thought-provoking book that will engender conversations.
I hope that you will consider reading the book and that if you do read it and enjoy it, that you will share it with others. I'm relying on word of mouth to make people aware of Lesson Plan. I do not expect to make much -- if any -- money on Lesson Plan -- but I do hope people read it. The more the better. Writing the book was a labor of love but I also had in mind that people would read it.
Thank you.
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