PASSING GRADE

About the Book

Who is lying? A child comes home and reports that he has had sex with his teacher. At the same time, a teacher reports to her principal that she has received a note from a student wherein the student threatens to tell the world that they (the student and the teacher) have had sex unless the teacher gives him a passing grade. If you set this conflict in a poor, rural community where rumor is king and backyard gossip is the coin of the realm, you have an explosive drama best compared to To Kill a Mockingbird. Add to this that the teacher is a first-year, pretty young thing from out-of-state and the student is an underachiever from a well-known, in-your-face, local family and the stage is quite literally set for a polarized community cat fight.

About the Author

Gene Lovell, an attorney by training, taught for 30 years in a rural Delmarva High School and was well-acquainted with situations like Passing Grade. As a first-hand observer, he was well-positioned to know the parties involved and the dynamics of the community?s power structure both socially and politically. All other things being equal, it was a situation easily resolved, but when sex came in to play all good sense and reason just evaporated. Logic and legal training became as leaves in a fall field of soybeans.