Never Fade Away

Never Fade Away, William Hart, Fithian Press, 2002

John Goddard is a remedial English teacher in the California State University system, and a soon-to-be published fiction writer. He is also a Vietnam veteran still troubled by bad dreams of his time in the war.

University policy is that two failed remedial English courses equals automatic expulsion from the university. The system, designed by Mary Hart Parcell, Dean of Arts and Sciences, whom Goddard loathes, seems intended for just that purpose. The assignments and exams are totally wrong for people who are usually immigrants from another country, and whose English may be lacking. Goddard is that rarity, a teacher who sincerely cares about his students, but without tenure, there is only so much that he can accomplish.

Tina Le is a student in Goddard's class. One of the post-war Vietnamese boat people, she is living with a woman named Rayneece, the sort of person who goes through boyfriends the way most people go through tissues. Tina writes a short story for an assignment about life back home in Vietnam. For Goddard, trudging through a sea of pretty bad writing by the rest of the class, Tina's story is a breath of fresh air. He fudges the grade on her final exam so that she can pass the course; the story is just too good to ignore. He gets disciplined by Dean Parcell, and after refusing to change Tina's final grade, is told not to come back next semester. He files an ultimately unsuccessful grievance against the school. Meantime, the relationship between Goddard and Le blooms into something more than the usual student-teacher relationship.

This is a gem of a first novel. Told in alternating diary excerpts, Hart easily switches back and forth from American English to "immigrant English." The author, an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher in real life, has many things to say about the academic world, none of them very complimentary. This one is well worth reading.