The Optimists - by Brian Platzer (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A beloved schoolteacher chronicles the meteoric rise of his most dazzling student in this ambitious, big-hearted story of learning and legacy.

Mr. Keating is an extraordinary teacher: brilliant, dedicated, and possibly a few pages ahead in a book no one else is reading. He's a magician, able to enchant fourteen-year-olds into a love of writing and literature. Yet no student has lived up to the promise of their potential more than Clara Hightower. Over the course of three decades, Clara goes from kindergarten thief to a high school genius, Silicon Valley celebrity, and, finally, animal rights activist turned terrorist.

But to tell Clara's story, Mr. Keating must tell his own, including his courtship and marriage, his dreams of writing and comedy, his days in the classroom in lower Manhattan and his rivalry and friendship with his head of school, and his eventual stroke and the isolation that follows.

Fiercely original, The Optimists is a love story, a joke book, and a meditation on the meaning of life and death. Tender and insightful, it's a profound testament to the lessons that reach far beyond the classroom.

Review Quotes

"Big-hearted and wry...The Optimists meditates on the fleeting but influential impact of teachers and the all-consuming orbit of those few 'chosen one' students."--USA Today

"Playful...Platzer's novel evokes the feeling of possibility."--The New Yorker

"The Optimists is an interesting, oddball book that had me well-invested in the fates of its characters....Clara and Jacob are at the center of the narrative, but the story is deeper than this. It is about what it means to invest your time in steering and aiding the fates of others."--Chicago Tribune

"A cast of well-drawn, off-beat supporting players deepen the tender wit, heart, and intimacy of this poignant, original story that probes the meaning of life and death and how ordinary people often connect in extraordinary ways."--Reading Between the Lines

"Brutal, generous, devastatingly funny--that's Brian Platzer for you."--Chicago Review of Books

"Memorably moving...The Optimists is a virtuoso performance that very well prompt readers to get in touch with their own favorite teachers."--Bookpage, starred review

"Brian Platzer's novel is endearing, and his descriptions of schoolhouse politics feel true--which makes sense, since he's a Manhattan middle-school teacher."--New York Magazine

"A funny, moving fable about destiny and our human drive to connect and make a difference."--Reader's Digest

"Humorous and poignant...It's a delight."--Publishers Weekly

"So many of us had that teacher: the one who inspired us, who lifted us out of our small childhood lives and put us on a track towards where we are now. Imagine if that teacher wrote your story, and in so doing told their own, and you'd have something like Platzer's debut novel."--Lit Hub

"The Optimists is warm, funny, and frequently touching. If the impulse to contact a favorite teacher arises after reading it, don't be surprised."--Shelf Awareness

"Charming...Platzer's amiable story is a love letter to teaching and knock-knock jokes alike."--Library Journal

"Brilliant... What will stick with readers most are the multi-dimensional portraits of complicated, flawed human beings, most notably the novel's narrator. Keening, darkly funny, and gruffly tender."--Kirkus Reviews

"Weaving together a cast of believably flawed, human characters...Platzer's sad, wistful, and moving [The Optimists] is also filled with humor and tenderness."--Booklist

"The Optimists by Brian Platzer manages the neat trick of being both an incredibly engaging story--told by a hugely appealing, joke-addicted, Yankees-loving, true-believer of a narrator--and a smart, subtle, unsparing look at a quarter century of recent US history, which encompasses tech-start-up culture, eco-activism, big-city income inequality and Ponzi wreckage. This is a wonderful, big-hearted novel and deserves every reader lucky enough to get their hands on it."--Laird Hunt, author of Zorrie

"The Optimists is engaging and propulsive from the outset, and the novel deepens and surprises along the way, gathering itself up into a work of startling poignancy. Brian Platzer writes with grace and witty precision about the varieties of human feeling, and he's a font of above-average knock-knock jokes to boot." --Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask

"The Optimists will make you nostalgic for your favorite grade school teacher--or the one you wish you'd had. With wonderful pacing, heart, and wit, Brian Platzer's winsome story speaks to the enduring power of our best selves, which are often formed in childhood and, if we are lucky, stay with us. This book is a true delight!"--Eileen Garvin, author of The Music of Bees

"Great books are like great teachers: they are wise, humane, compassionate, and they illuminate the world in ways we never knew were possible. The Optimists is all of this and more. It's a beautiful novel about how we love, how we remember, and how--if we're lucky--we get to mean something to someone else."--Nathan Hill, author of Wellness

"In The Optimists, Brian Platzer captures the life-or-death stakes of teaching in a way that few other novels have. I was so impressed by the way it manages its complex mix of humor and tragedy, and I found myself consistently surprised by the elegance of its revelations. Even as a committed pessimist, I was wholly won over by The Optimists." --Andrew Martin, author of Early Work

"The hothouse world of precious academics and precocious children is as strange a place as any to find hope, but the school at the center of The Optimists is such a place. It is the ideal setting for fragile but enduring love, love between young and brilliant students under the fascinated and watchful eye of a loving educator. A book for anyone who has had an unlikely future shaped by a brilliant teacher, which is all of us, isn't it?" --Stephen Marche, author of On Writing and Failure

"The long tail, in both lives, of the relationship between that one great teacher and that one special student. Come for the gloriously corny jokes and arcane grammar tips, stay for the salutary tale of two very different people trying to figure out what it means to lead a well spent life."--Jonathan Dee, author of The Privileges

"This is a highly original novel, full of affection and intelligence, and of insights into the world of teachers, eighth graders, parents and children, teenagers and the story of love. Read it!"--Roxana Robinson, author of Leaving

About the Author

Brian Platzer was the education columnist for The Atlantic and has written frequently for the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and many other publications. He currently teaches and lives with his family in Brooklyn and Paris.