CHICAGO — The erotic novella under fire from the Chicago Teachers Union includes (surprise!) much more coitus than political commentary.
"The Teacher's Strike" tells the story of Telly, a "troubled" 19-year-old high schooler who falls for his former classmate-turned-teacher Clair Willarney as her union fights City Hall for better wages. But their relationship is tested once it goes public amid the teachers' labor strife. The story is set in Chicago, with the romance originating in a fictional Downtown school called "Butch College Prep."
After a quick skim of the 87-page book, here are some highlights (that we could publish):
• "I live in Chicago, where I was born, bred and buttered my whole life."
This is the introduction to the protagonist. Also, "Telly" is a nickname for Aristotle.
• "Her nose — shaped celestially, upturning from the bridge to the tip, in a scooped, circular fashion — gnawed at my memory. Like a crescent moon, the dainty snout gave her the air of a petite beauty."
This is a lot of adjectives to describe a nose. However, the sweet-talking is probably nullified by the word "snout."
• "Finding Clair was like finding Waldo in those children's books. She found me again, though. She tends to do that."
OK, won't lie, we'd probably use this simile.
• "The week's activities reminded me of a truculent army's siege on a medieval town."
That's one way to put it.
• "I'm tired of billionaires, like our mayor of the one percent, telling us what we need to do for our children, as if they love our children more than we do," Mrs. Karky said. "They have the money, they have the media, but we have something they don't have — us. Everyone. There isn't one civil service union in this city that doesn't support us. Even the headmaster of the elite, twenty-thousand-yearly-tuition private day school where the mayor sends his children agrees with us on the issues we're striking over — prioritizing the arts and sciences, long-term fair pay, and refusal to allow standardized testing be the bludgeoning basis for teacher evaluations to use over our heads as one more tool to cleanse teachers out of this district."
This harangue draws from history to detail the mobilization of the fictional teacher movement. Mrs. Karky appears to represent CTU President Karen Lewis in the novel. In fact, Mrs. Karky returns from an illness in the novel. Lewis has returned amid a cancer battle.
• "We'll see."
The author ends the novella with this, leaving the door open for a sequel. Sorry for the spoiler.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
