You Deserve Nothing

by Alexander Maksik

Overview

An idolized lit teacher falls from grace at a Parisian high school for the wealthy elite in this novel of power, idealism and morality.

William Silver is a talented and charismatic young teacher whose unconventional methods raise eyebrows among his colleagues and superiors. His students, however, are devoted to him. His teaching of Camus, Faulkner, Sartre, Keats and other kindred souls breathe life into their sense of social justice and their capacities for philosophical and ethical thought. But unbeknownst to his adoring pupils, Silver proves incapable of living up to the ideals he encourages in others. Emotionally scarred by failures in his personal life and driven to distraction by the City of Light’s overpowering carnality and beauty, Silver succumbs to a temptation that will change the course of his life. His fall will render him a criminal in the eyes of some, and all too human in the eyes of others . . .

In Maksik’s stylish prose, Paris is sensual, dazzling and dangerously seductive. It serves as a fitting backdrop for a dramatic tale about the tension between desire and action, and about the complex relationship that exists between our public and private selves.

Praise for You Deserve Nothing

“The book is just too damned good to put down.” —The Stranger

“With writing that is reminiscent of James Salter’s in its sensuality, Francine Prose’s capacious inquiry into difficult moral questions and Martin Amis’s loose-limbed evocation of the perils of youth.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“Rivetingly plotted and beautifully written.” —New York Times

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609459123
Publisher:	Europa Editions, Incorporated
Publication date:	03/23/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	951,343
File size:	999 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Alexander Maksik is the recipient of a Truman Capote Fellowship and a Teaching/Writing fellowship from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He's presently the Provost's Postgraduate Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa. You Deserve Nothing is his first novel. He lives in Paris and Iowa City.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Both intelligent and intellectual, this is both a tribute to brilliant teachers and a cautionary tale of their imperfections." —-Kirkus Starred Review

Editorial Reviews

This is a novel so rivetingly plotted and beautifully written that you forget its shopworn premise…[Maksik] writes about the moral ambiguity of Will's circumstances with dazzling clarity and impressive philosophical rigor. The contrasting perspectives of Mr. Maksik's trio of narrators—each telling his or her story in the past tense from a time when the events described have faded in importance—add to the complexity and the suspense.
—The New York Times

Adam Langer

Maksik's solid debut, the first book from Europa's new Tonga imprint, is set at an international high school in Paris. Will Silver is adored by his students for pushing them to think for themselves and to take responsibility for their decisions. Silver is wonderful at prompting others to live a courageous life, but, his students soon learn, he doesn't always live up to those ideals himself. He becomes secretly involved with Marie, a loudmouthed student at the school, whose best friend/worst enemy Ariel is in Silver's class along with Gilad, for whom Paris is just the next in a long line of cities he's called home. Paris itself threads throughout Maksik's novel, a character in its own right, sometimes supporting the action, sometimes contrasting it, and clearly a place that Maksik knows well. The author gives alternating first-person voice to Will, Marie, and Gilad, and chooses not to investigate Silver's motivation behind the affair, which can be frustrating. But the consequences resonate loud and clear. This is a thoughtful and sad story, ending with questions about the futures of everyone involved. Silver has been knocked off his pedestal, and what will become of the students is anyone's guess. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Both intelligent and intellectual, this is both a tribute to brilliant teachers and a cautionary tale of their imperfections." ---Kirkus Starred Review

From the Publisher

"Alexander Maksik's first novel, You Deserve Nothing, is a thoroughly engaging, passionate, and challenging read that finely walks the line between morality and amorality. In a society, and at a time, when individual identity is so closely tied to collective narcissism, Maksik's novel asks what are the true sources of selfworth? And how shall we live?"

-Tom Jenks

"Maksik's superb novel takes on the most fundamental question-how are we supposed to live?-with a freshness and urgency that are nothing short of masterful. This is a gorgeous book, as honest and rich a depiction of life's contradictions as I've encountered in many years."

-Ben Fountain

"A provocative, constantly surprising, and original novel. This is a thrilling debut."

-Susanna Moore

"You Deserve Nothing rings true from first page to last. Here is a writer who understands why the artful telling of a difficult story is a brave and important thing to do. Read this book."

-John Burnham Schwartz

"You Deserve Nothing is a powerful, absorbing novel about a charismatic expatriate teacher and the students whose lives he transforms, for better and worse. Alexander Maksik is an unusually gifted writer."

-Tom Perrotta

"Alexander Maksik deftly evokes the beauty and pathos of Paris, and the story of Will, Gilad and Marie-each compelled towards moral and sexual awakening- is at once dark and luminous. This is a book to be read all at once with a glass of wine in a café or a cup of tea while tucked safely in bed."

-A.M. Homes

"One of the most engaged reads I've had in years."

-Alice Sebold

The trio that narrates this troubling novel of an illicit relationship and the fall of a hero works well together. Will Silver is the teacher high school students love: irreverent yet motivating. Most kids at the international school in Paris work hard to earn his praise. Narrator Dan John Miller modulates his tone to mirror Silver's enthusiasm in the classroom and his detachment elsewhere, increasing listeners' unease at the teacher's behavior as the story proceeds. Cassandra Campbell gives voice to Marie, a French student who is determined to seduce Silver. Campbell uses an appropriately youthful pitch with hints of teen insecurity and apathy. Although Adam Verner sounds slightly mature for young Gilad, a loner who idolizes Silver, he perfectly projects the boy's conflicted feelings, especially when the teacher's true nature is revealed. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2012 - AudioFile

A novel that examines the relationship between the public and shared experience of a lively—even magical—classroom, and the private world of a gifted but flawed teacher.

Largely a character study of Will Silver, master teacher at the International School of France in Paris, the novel advances its narrative through multiple perspectives, much as Faulkner does in As I Lay Dying, one of the texts Will insists his students read. Will is a charismatic English teacher, one of those rare few who inspire a Dead Poets Society–typecult among the seniors in his philosophy and literature seminar. Based on their readings of Sartre, Camus, Faulkner, Shakespeare and Keats, he urges his students to raise questions about the way they live their lives and has them confront their own existential freedom and moral choices. But Will is caught in the irony of his own moral choices when he feels attracted to Marie de Cléry, a student at the school, and begins a torrid sexual relationship with her. Marie is best friends with Ariel, which is to say they have a volatile, love-hate relationship driven both by envy and by jealousy, and it's clear that Ariel will do anything to pull Will down. While much of the narrative burden of the novel is assumed by Will and Marie, Maksik also provides views of other students, especially Gilad, whose own homoerotic attraction to Will complicates his take on things. Some of the best scenes in the novel involve the reconstruction of the philosophical give-and-take of his classroom, Will's efforts to get his students to think and to make the literature their own. And despite the administration's understandable desire to turn Will into a monster who's preyed upon a vulnerable young woman, he remains sympathetic to the end.

Both intelligent and intellectual, this is both a tribute to brilliant teachers and a cautionary tale of their imperfections.

Kirkus Reviews