Though occasionally heavy-handed, The English Teacher is thoughtful and often moving as it explores [a] brave boy's efforts to learn what his mother has longed to forget.
—The New York Times

A marriage of single parents is more often the stuff of sitcoms than of serious novels, but King (The Pleasing Hour) uses it to great effect in this intense character study. Single mother Vida Avery teaches English at an exclusive northeastern private high school and has a host of protective rituals that keep her life with adolescent son Peter basically on track; she also allows everyone, including boyfriend Tom, to think that she had been married to Peter's father. Peter, who has longed for an intact family, is thrilled when Vida accepts the proposal of Tom, a widower with three children-albeit in an ambivalent manner full of simmering private rage. Whiting winner King renders Vida's seething withholding in a free, direct style that captures everything from knowing responses toward a male co-worker ("who wanted to play jilted suitor, not because he had loved her, but because she had not loved him") to her dreams of killing Peter. She's also excellent on the children's reactions to each other as the households come together and then separate, dramatically and perhaps permanently. King keeps Vida in tight focus throughout, even as the wrenching story of Peter's conception slowly comes to light. Agent, Wendy Weil. 60,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; 10-city tour. (Sept.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, the text for Vida Avery's sophomore English class, presages the characters and story of this recording. Vida, the best English teacher on the faculty of Fayer Academy, a private, Northeast high school, arrived there with baby son Peter 15 years ago. In what seems an improbable turn of events, she becomes engaged and marries widower Tom Belou. Her past slowly unravels as she withdraws into bouts of drinking, her son responds to a father and family he's always yearned for, and her career careens out of control. Christina Moore provides a serviceable narration, but this realistic novel ranks as a marginal library purchase.-Sandy Glover, Camas P.L., WA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Adult/High School-Vida Avery teaches literature at a New England prep school. She arrived at its doors 15 years earlier with her baby and a mysterious past. She is considered the best English teacher at Fayer Academy and she maintains rigid control of her classroom, tolerating no tangents, personal discussion, or questions. She tries to keep that same control over her life, which is why she shocks everyone, including herself, by marrying Tom Belou, a widower with three children. Her teenaged son, Peter, is thrilled to be moving from their quarters on the campus to a real house with a real family, but he finds that his stepsiblings are still grieving for their mother. His mother's closely guarded emotional world begins to unravel and she suffers a complete breakdown. The 1980 Iran Hostage Crisis provides the backdrop for the story, paralleling Vida's sense of being a captive in her marriage, but the stronger metaphor is Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, the tragic tale of an unwed mother, which Vida begins teaching the Monday after her wedding. Only when she reveals to Peter the truth about their past can any healing begin. King's engaging writing beautifully illuminates the complicated relationships and emotions of everyone involved. It is a story of isolation, patience, and love, and of people trying to find comfort in one another. The author's style is unsentimental and direct, and the compelling story draws readers right in.-Susanne Bardelson, Kitsap Regional Library, WA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

A single mother's long-pent-up rage and unhappiness threaten her new marriage and her son's sense of stability-in King's follow-up to the well-received The Pleasing Hour (1999). Peter is thrilled that his mother, Vida, an English teacher at a New England private school, is marrying Tom, a local widower with three kids. Peter yearns for family, for normalcy, and especially for a father, since Vida has never told him anything about his own. But from the day of the wedding, the same day in 1979 that the hostages are taken in Iran, Vida feels like a hostage herself in the marriage. She has always preferred her books to the real world, devoted only to her dog and feeling ambivalence even toward Peter. As Peter gets closer to his new stepsiblings and Tom, Vida withdraws. Sullen and nasty already, she also begins drinking heavily. Despite Tom's repeated explanation, readers will wonder what attracted Vida and Tom in the first place, since King allows the thoroughly unlikable Vida no inkling of warmth toward Tom, one of those characters too saintly not to be stepped on by the women they love. As Vida teaches her students Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the parallels become obvious. Peter was the product of a rape from which Vida has never recovered-explaining why her mother love is mixed with fury. Naturally, her sex life with Tom isn't good either. Previously a popular teacher, she is put on probation for increasingly outrageous comments to her students. After her dog dies, she self-destructs. Peter ends up driving her, drunken and disheveled, across the country to California, where her sister lives. Suddenly the slow, claustrophobic story speeds up toward an unearned happy resolution. Tom is toogood to be true, and Vida too unpleasant to care about. Still, King beautifully delineates the grieving children in all their confused steps toward recovery. First printing of 60,000; $50,000 ad/promo budget

A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year

A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Best Novels of the Year

People Magazine Critics Choice Pick

“Beautifully written and carefully observed . . . King is a wildly talented writer.” —Chicago Tribune

“[King] brings this beautifully rendered novel to a dramatic denouement that is once surprising and realistic.”—Los Angeles Times

“[A] beautifully written follow-up . . . an engaging and moving read.” —Entertainment Weekly

“[A] domestic drama with the adrenalin-fueled beating heart of a thriller, offering readers the best of two traditionally very different worlds.” —Elle

“A marriage of single parents is more often the stuff of sitcoms than of serious novels, but King uses it to great effect in this intense character study. . . . King renders Vida’s seething withholding in a free, direct style that captures everything . . . She’s also excellent on the children’s reactions to each other as the households come together and then separate, dramatically and perhaps permanently.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Spare but acutely observed . . . This fine book demonstrates how a short novel can illuminate difficult real-life issues with sensitivity and insight.” — Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“This wise and moving novel is much like Sue Miller’s fiction. . . . [The] narration alternates very effectively. . . . But the heart of the story is its lovely depiction of wounded people struggling to find solace and stability in each other.” — Arizona Republic

“King has superbly crafted the psyche of these principal characters. . . . [She] has delved into the depths of two lonely souls and treated us to a wonderful experience.” —Tampa Tribune

“From its powerful beginning, Lily King’s The English Teacher soars. It is a book filled with surprises; a novel that takes unexpected turns. . . . King is a masterful storyteller. . . . An uplifting book with a message of hope.” —Portland Press Herald

“King beautifully delineates the grieving children in all their confused steps toward recovery.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Lily King writes equally movingly and beautifully about both the large, dramatic and the small, seemingly inconsequential acts that destroy and define family.” —Lily Tuck, winner of the National Book Award for The News From Paraguay

“King delicately delves into the fragile bonds holding families together, even when logic favors their dissolution . . . [She] writes with subtle clarity, displaying an intuitive understanding of the vulnerable psyches of teenagers, and with pinpoint perception of her characters’ inner lives.” —Booklist