From Darkness to Light

This week I finished the second pair of stories in Full Dark, No Stars.  Both were very good, although the first, "Fair Extension," a classic make-a-deal-with-the-devil story (with a side of The Book of Job), was lighter than the second.  In fact, it was the lightest of the four, being almost comical.  King used Bangor for his setting, and I enjoyed recognizing the landmarks he described.  I didn't like the main character, though, and that lessened the pleasure for me.  Dave Streeter was far too willing to accept the happy consequences of his deal with "Elvid," that left him cured of his fatal cancer while his so-called best friend lost everything he treasured.  In the end, Dave was not punished for his bad acts, though I believe he should have been.

The last story, "A Good Marriage," was inspired by the revelations some years ago that the BTK killer in Wichita, KS had murdered women for many years while his family and friends suspected nothing.  This was the most suspenseful of the lot, and very compelling, but was as morally ambiguous as the rest. In each of the four stories, the protagonist gets away with murder, which leaves me wondering what King meant for us to learn about the stranger who dwells within.  Should we condemn or approve the character's success? If we approve, are we revealing our own inner darkness?

After Stephen King, I decided a dose of reality was in order, so I took up a book I started reading many years ago but didn't finish, another of Tracy Kidder's books about ordinary (and sometimes extraordinary) people. Among Schoolchildren chronicles a year in the life of Christine Zajac, an elementary school teacher in Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1986.  We learn about her fifth-grade classroom, her pupils and some of the staff at Kelly School, one of the many public schools trying to educate students in the face of some very difficult challenges. 

In the book, Kidder paints a detailed portrait of Mrs. Zajac, as a teacher and a person, so that we get to know her and care about her as we go through the school year with her and her students.  We also get to know and care about some of her students, one in particular, Clarence, known to all the teachers as a "difficult" child.  We watch while Christine deploys her full arsenal of teaching tactics to get around Clarence's many behavioral, social and learning challenges with the hope of finding a way to help him.

Tracy Kidder is a skilled writer who always manages to get me deeply engaged in the lives of the people he profiles. I'm about half way through the book now, which means it's half way through the school year, and I'm looking forward with hope (and fear) to what lies ahead for the children.  Already it seems some of them won't make it, despite Mrs. Zajac's considerable talent and dedication.  Reading this book reinforces my appreciation of how incredibly difficult a job teaching is.  Among Schoolchildren should be required reading for those pundits on cable TV who sneer at teachers and for the politicians who write laws that make teachers' lives more difficult than they already are.

In my next post, I'll let you know what happens to Mrs. Zajac's class.  She's still alive, apparently--though she is now a retired principal--and still living in Holyoke.  In fact, in 2009 she was the Grand Marshal for the city's St. Patrick's Day Parade.  Read about it here: MassLive.