The Optimists

A retired eighth grade English teacher reflects on two former students who gave his life meaning in the humorous and poignant third novel from Platzer (Bed-Stuy Is Burning). The nonlinear narrative comprises a manuscript written by 77-year-old Rod Keating after a stroke. In 1987, when Rod was in his mid-40s, his colleague and long-ago lover Enid Smeal asked him to be a father figure for her five-year-old son, Jacob, whom he charms with knock-knock jokes. A great deal of the novel is taken up by Rod’s jokes (“Q: What do you call a Mongolian leader who doesn’t believe in himself? A: Genghis Khan’t”), which illustrate a commitment to silliness that his students find endearing. The novel’s heart, though, is in Jacob and his friend Clara Hightower’s eighth grade year as Rod’s students in 1994. For Rod, the high-achieving Clara becomes “the student who made that calling most worthwhile.” Jacob stands out, too, but after he and Clara fall in love, a meddling school administrator worries he will hinder Clara’s future excellence, and the two wind up at different high schools, with consequences that will reverberate for decades. Platzer, himself a middle school English teacher, evokes the special bonds between exceptional students and their favorite educators. It’s a delight. Agent: Trena Keating, Union Literary. (Feb.)