A student remembers the English teacher—that thankless job—a pivotal encounter that will shape his future as an author.

A student remembers the English teacher he met in the late 1970s, a pivotal encounter that will, almost unbeknownst to him, shape his future as an author. Time has effaced nothing—quite the opposite. In fact, it has etched even more deeply what seemed fleeting at the time. Some things that teacher said, his way of being in the world, his freedom, taken on an entirely new dimension when, as an adult, Mathieu Pieyre learns of his passing. From this memoir emerges a reality more powerful than death, the ghost that haunts its pages astonishingly alive.