An Honorable Profession
A Novel
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Notable Book of a young teacher and the scandal that could destroy him. “A combination interior odyssey and intense thriller” (Publishers Weekly).
John L’Heureux is one of our most authoritative and compelling novelists, and An Honorable Profession is a “splendid novel” realized “superbly well” about an ordinary New England school where a young teacher’s life is about to undergo the most serious of tests (The Star-Ledger).
Miles Bannon works hard and strives to be fair; he enjoys his popularity with students—a bit too much, sometimes—but overall he is a good man. When he witnesses a group of students picking on one boy in the shower after football practice, he is suddenly forced to balance his responsibility for the situation with the unexpectedly intimate glimpse he now has of them. And when the victim begins to cling to him in the face of his own father’s rejection, Miles finds it perhaps too welcome a feeling. Then comes an accusation of impropriety that will destroy his career—and transform his life, and who he thought he was, forever.
“Brilliant and complex . . . A deeply ambitious novelist . . . who isn’t afraid of dealing with dark themes and what it means to be fully human.” —Robert Ward, The New York Time Book Review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poet and novelist L'Heureux ( A Woman Run Mad ) here offers a modern-day variation on The Children's Hour with this portrayal of a teacher victimized by a whispering campaign. Miles Bannon is a popular high school English teacher in Boston who enjoys the respect of his students. His mother is dying, he is messily involved with two women and he is plagued by a deep insecurity about his sexual orientation. When a boy who has been sexually brutalized by a gang of football players in the locker room develops a crush on Miles, he fails to discourage it--an ambiguity that triggers bitter accusations after the boy commits suicide. Miles must confront his own nature as he faces the opprobrium of his colleagues and the community. In powerful, graphic prose, L'Heureux succeeds in presenting Miles as a weak hero without alienating the reader. The result is a troubling story--a combination interior odyssey and intense thriller--that doesn't settle for black-and-white answers.
