Still in Love: A Novel

by Michael Downing

Overview

“By means both wry and warm, Michael Downing elucidates the meaning of the classroom—its space for reflection, rumination, and pause—in a world that doesn’t seem to be stopping. Still in Love reminds me why he was one of my favorite professors ever.” —Melissa Broder, author of The Pisces



This is your chance to enroll in English 10 at highly rated Hellman College—if you can find a place to sit in the fantastically overcrowded classroom.



Mark Sternum, whom readers first met in Michael Downing’s beloved novel Perfect Agreement, is a veteran teacher. Twenty years older, separated for six months from his longtime lover, and desperate to duck the overtures of double-dealing deans above him and disgruntled adjunct faculty below him, Mark has one ambition every day he is on campus—to close the door and leave the world behind. His escape, however, is complicated by his contentious wrestling match of a relationship with the Professor, the tenured faculty member with whom Mark has cotaught this creative-writing workshop for ten years.



The spectacle of their combative academic relationship is a chance for students—all of us—to learn what an amazing arena the classroom can be. Replete with engaging writing exercises, harsh criticism, and contrarian advice, Still in Love is the story of one semester. And it is an urgent reminder that we desperately need classrooms, that those singular, sealed-off-from-the-world sanctuaries are where we learn to love our lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781640093409
Publisher:	Counterpoint Press
Publication date:	01/07/2025
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

MICHAEL DOWNING is the author of nine books, including the national bestseller Perfect Agreement; Breakfast with Scot, which was adapted as a feature film; Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center; and Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time. A frequent commentator in the national media on Congress and the clocks, he teaches creative writing at Tufts University.

Interviews

MICHAEL DOWNING is the author of nine books, including the national bestseller Perfect Agreement ; Breakfast with Scot , which was adapted a feature film; Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center ; and Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time. A frequent commentator in the national media on Congress and the clocks, he teaches creative writing at Tufts University.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Still in Love



“By means both wry and warm, Michael Downing elucidates the meaning of the classroom—its space for reflection, rumination, and pause—in a world that doesn’t seem to be stopping. Still in Love reminds me why he was one of my favorite professors ever.” —Melissa Broder, author of The Pisces



“Brilliantly sly and ferociously precise. Michael Downing writes about the idiosyncrasies, possibilities, and limitations of the classroom with wit and rare tenderness. Still in Love is a joy.” ––Jennifer duBois, author of Cartwheel and A Partial History of Lost Causes



“This novel is a treasure—at once hilariously funny and genuinely moving. Downing gently pokes fun at university politics and the comedy of manners that every teacher witnesses on a daily basis. But don’t be fooled by the laughs. It is also a subtle, exquisite love letter to teaching, students, and the sacred space of the classroom.” —Alexandra Zapruder, author of Twenty-Six Seconds



“Still in Love is a rare occurrence in the book world, a lyrical and compassionate novel that is whip-smart and laugh-out-loud funny. And filled with terrific characters—a whole college classroom full, each more irresistible than the last. In conferences, lessons, and hallway chats, Downing captures the alchemy of teaching and learning. Along the way, he sounds the complex notes of race, beauty, heartbreak, grammar, gender, mortal illness, and growing up, but we never feel instructed, only enlightened. And deeply moved. Anyone who teaches anything should read this. (And for those in the business, the writing exercises included here are the best I’ve ever found.) But so should anyone who cares about young people, and learning, and love.” —Michelle Blake, author of the acclaimed Lily Connor mysteries



“Downing’s witty follow-up to Perfect Agreement satisfyingly transports readers to college as teacher Mark Sternum begins winter term at Hellman College in New England . . . In depicting Mark’s ordinary semester, Downing poignantly illustrates the dynamics of the college classroom as well as its potential for lasting lessons, making for a resonant campus novel.” —Publishers Weekly



“Though this is a stand-alone, Downing's loyal readers will appreciate the depth and breadth of Mark’s character arc more than 20 years after his introduction, in Perfect Agreement (1997). Depicting striving adjuncts, grade-grubbing students, and smug professors, Downing fearlessly pokes at the least glamorous aspects of academia. Fans of Richard Russo, Francine Prose, and Julie Schumacher’s Dear Committee Members (2014) will enjoy Downing’s clear-eyed view from the ivory tower.” —Booklist

From the Publisher

10/29/2018
Downing’s witty follow-up to Perfect Agreement satisfyingly transports readers to college as teacher Mark Sternum begins winter term at Hellman College in New England. Mark’s highly acclaimed creative writing class is filled with 12 students, yet hopefuls line the classroom to listen to the writer’s workshop. Mark jointly teaches with the Professor, a distant man whom the students fear as much as they feel at ease with Sternum. This term is challenging for Mark as he tries to fill the void left by Paul, his partner of 30 years who is currently overseas, by staying at Paul’s condo more than in his own house. The students, meanwhile, dissect each other’s work and try to sort out their lives. Mark takes an interest in Anton, a student whom he learns is battling cancer. In addition to focusing on his own writing, Mark stresses over an important departmental report, and even though he’s tenured, he likes to please and allows union meetings to be held in his office. In depicting Mark’s ordinary semester, Downing poignantly illustrates the dynamics of the college classroom as well as its potential for lasting lessons, making for a resonant campus novel. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Portrayed by narrator George Newbern in this audiobook, Professor Mark Sternum teaches his beloved creative writing workshop, deals with faculty politics, and struggles with loneliness as his longtime partner works works overseas for six months. Teaching is Mark’s love and his escape, both of which Newbern expertly conveys in his narration. The story is full of Mark’s course assignments, which are further enlivened by Newbern’s delivery. He also captures the interpersonal relationships between Mark and his students, which further suggest his love of teaching. Little distinction between characters in conversations makes for a bit of confusion; however, Newbern’s steady pacing and suitable inflections aid in the flow of this short novel. A.L.S.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

MAY 2019 - AudioFile

Portrayed by narrator George Newbern in this audiobook, Professor Mark Sternum teaches his beloved creative writing workshop, deals with faculty politics, and struggles with loneliness as his longtime partner works works overseas for six months. Teaching is Mark’s love and his escape, both of which Newbern expertly conveys in his narration. The story is full of Mark’s course assignments, which are further enlivened by Newbern’s delivery. He also captures the interpersonal relationships between Mark and his students, which further suggest his love of teaching. Little distinction between characters in conversations makes for a bit of confusion; however, Newbern’s steady pacing and suitable inflections aid in the flow of this short novel. A.L.S.M. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

MAY 2019 - AudioFile

2018-10-15

A creative writing professor soldiers through a semester, uncertain of his own capacity to write or teach.

This sequel to Downing's 1997 novel, Perfect Agreement, revisits Mark, a teacher at a Massachusetts college who guides a clutch of undergrads through the essentials of point of view, style, and metaphor. But he lacks much in the way of authority or even assertiveness. He cedes much of the control of the writing workshop to an unnamed professor with whom he co-teaches it, feels listless at home (his partner is working overseas), and is growing weary of both academic bureaucracy (he's procrastinating on writing an assigned memo for a committee he serves on) and intramural tensions (the adjuncts are organizing). All of this lassitude gives the novel a distinct lack of body heat, especially in the early chapters, where much of the narrative excitement comes from the peculiarities of Mark's writing exercises: Write a scene using only one-syllable words, write about a car crash that kills a person, etc. Eventually the book snaps into the seriocomic groove that the campus novel typically demands, from Mark's struggle to complete his own assignments to his hailing an Uber that turns out to be driven by one of the college's ill-paid adjuncts. Some late-breaking plot twists, involving an ailing student and the professor's true identity, shed some light on Mark's disconnection from himself. But the prevailing mood is ambivalence: "You could call this fear of success or fear of failure. You could say that Mark was embarrassed by his ambitions or unequal to them." That kind of wheel-spinning drains the action from the story. And as any writing teacher will tell you, the success of a story rests on the action that its central character brings to it.

Downing sets the town-and-gown scenery well, but there's an irony in a hero advocating for active writing in such a static environment.

Kirkus Reviews