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Why Teach?: A Novel
Fourth-year stop-gap teacher William Able has dreams to chase and a hometown to leave. In the aftermath of a favorite student's death, with the high school's administration banning books and the richest rewards of an American life bestowed on those pursuing less noble careers, William is forced to If people like him keep leaving, who will teach the children?
In a world where the test scores can measure everything but what matters most, Why Teach? is a master class on why teaching matters, why reading matters, and what we risk losing when we pursue paths leading us away from our best selves.
In a world where the test scores can measure everything but what matters most, Why Teach? is a master class on why teaching matters, why reading matters, and what we risk losing when we pursue paths leading us away from our best selves.
- GenresFiction
223 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 4, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 11, 2025
A powerful novel that will not only resonate with teachers but with any young person trying to reconcile dreams and aspirations with the messiness of life and doing what's meaningful and right. It's peopled with familiar characters and places; although set in Western Kansas, I envisioned William's dance with Davis and Jules in the pub owned by Mr Halama from the church I went to growing up where we'd go to watch the Packers. I've known Garretts and Lauren Wests, Kelseys and Mrs Hirsches, and especially Javis. They are why we do what we do. I won't spoil the ending but, true to life, the book concludes with the teacher learning and gaining at least as much as his students, if not more. Even at its hardest, teaching from the heart nourishes the soul.
"There's no shade in the shadow of the cross." - Sufjan Stevens
"There's no shade in the shadow of the cross." - Sufjan Stevens
October 16, 2025
In this particularly well-told story the main character William Able teaches English to a high-school class stuffed to the brim with students most reluctant to learn.
As a (former) teacher myself, I noticed Able deals with issues that are very common: that the testscores of the school are top priority, the overal notion that you only become a teacher when you failed to accomplish doing what you actually wanted to do, and that multiple choice tests are infinitely more important than fiction.
During practically the whole novel, it seemed that Able had the potential, but did not deliver.
In the end, though, he seemed to grasp my own personal opinion : when you make sure your students pass, you’re a good teacher. But only when you pour both your heart and soul into it, you become a GREAT teacher.
A magnificent novel !
As a (former) teacher myself, I noticed Able deals with issues that are very common: that the testscores of the school are top priority, the overal notion that you only become a teacher when you failed to accomplish doing what you actually wanted to do, and that multiple choice tests are infinitely more important than fiction.
During practically the whole novel, it seemed that Able had the potential, but did not deliver.
In the end, though, he seemed to grasp my own personal opinion : when you make sure your students pass, you’re a good teacher. But only when you pour both your heart and soul into it, you become a GREAT teacher.
A magnificent novel !
May 29, 2025
Why Teach? was my first “Substack” novel I bought. I read one of the author’s short stories on Peter Shull’s Lower Midlist sub. His writing read easier than many long form samples I read online. I wanted to buy the physical book and was very glad I did.
Why Teach? is my kind of modern fiction I need as a working parent. Generally, I don’t have the mental patience to grind through classics and this book, while thought provoking, Why Teach? was easy-on-the-page. Any pause or hesitation in the read was to think about a scene or conflict in the story. The pages go down easy and the story leaves you with a reminder of the underlying importance and purpose of teachers and inspiration that teachers can serve in our lives, in spite of bureaucratic and nonsensical administrative agendas, which are all too real in modern public education.
I found Why Teach? to be consistently enjoyable and easily reachable for anyone who ever had a teacher you liked, respected, or found inspiring. Except for college, where I had the pleasure of getting a beer with a professor outside of the class, what teachers do outside of the class, how they spend their time, has always grabbed my curiosity. How exciting (or boring) is their time outside of class? I always wondered that. Why Teach? covers all of that in a way that’s grounded and humane, entertaining and stimulating. I came away recommending the book to other family members who are or were teachers and admittedly gained a deeper respect for my daughters’ elementary school teachers.
Any parents or teachers out there, check out Why Teach? this summer. You may enjoy the chaos of the school year a bit more.
Why Teach? is my kind of modern fiction I need as a working parent. Generally, I don’t have the mental patience to grind through classics and this book, while thought provoking, Why Teach? was easy-on-the-page. Any pause or hesitation in the read was to think about a scene or conflict in the story. The pages go down easy and the story leaves you with a reminder of the underlying importance and purpose of teachers and inspiration that teachers can serve in our lives, in spite of bureaucratic and nonsensical administrative agendas, which are all too real in modern public education.
I found Why Teach? to be consistently enjoyable and easily reachable for anyone who ever had a teacher you liked, respected, or found inspiring. Except for college, where I had the pleasure of getting a beer with a professor outside of the class, what teachers do outside of the class, how they spend their time, has always grabbed my curiosity. How exciting (or boring) is their time outside of class? I always wondered that. Why Teach? covers all of that in a way that’s grounded and humane, entertaining and stimulating. I came away recommending the book to other family members who are or were teachers and admittedly gained a deeper respect for my daughters’ elementary school teachers.
Any parents or teachers out there, check out Why Teach? this summer. You may enjoy the chaos of the school year a bit more.
January 8, 2026
Good pilgrims, great prose, and a plot that brings the joys and agonies of teaching high school English into vivid focus: this one's got it all, folks 👏👏👏👏👏
Shull draws on creative vision and boots-on-the-ground classroom experience in equal measure, and delivers both a ripping good yarn and a pointed piece of social commentary. William Able, Jr. is a relatable Rabbit Angstrom-type Everyman - a Kansan idealist strapped with professional and existential challenges of every sort, yet possessed with resourcefulness and a deep, abiding humanity. Watch him dodge asinine administration officials and Shakespearean family power dynamics in pursuit of a life of purpose: the journey is never less than rewarding, and the plotting is tighter than a duck's sphincter 🫡
Business was stood on throughout the drafting of this one. 10/10
Shull draws on creative vision and boots-on-the-ground classroom experience in equal measure, and delivers both a ripping good yarn and a pointed piece of social commentary. William Able, Jr. is a relatable Rabbit Angstrom-type Everyman - a Kansan idealist strapped with professional and existential challenges of every sort, yet possessed with resourcefulness and a deep, abiding humanity. Watch him dodge asinine administration officials and Shakespearean family power dynamics in pursuit of a life of purpose: the journey is never less than rewarding, and the plotting is tighter than a duck's sphincter 🫡
Business was stood on throughout the drafting of this one. 10/10
January 8, 2026
Why Teach? is a dead-on read of the moment where an early career educator, or maybe 4th year-er in an embattled and emotionally or physically injurious profession, moves into a middle career educator. I don't know if anyone is able to escape the drag of a slight depressive moment or year, where the orientation to the whole thing needs to shift.
Part of that shift or pivot involves a little bit of destroying a piece of yourself. Whether that part is noble or ignoble is up to debate. I'm more and more in the latter: so many teachers who leave, especially the downwardly mobile types depicted in this book (and myself, guilty) enter the profession with a conception of the school, class, team as a solar system--the students orbiting a thing. Whether that's the content or lesson plan or teacher varies from person to person and framework to framework. But all are wrong: there is no orbit, only an arc up and then down. The students' are vastly sturdier than any lack of the classroom could knock off. Still, yes, unbelievable, heartwarming, rapturous change can happen in the classroom: but the control over that, the ability to create it, year 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 disabuses the hope that you can press a button, pull a lever, swing a word and see something in return.
It is all scattered seeds, sown randomly, blooming too far down the line to ever know, with safe knowledge that most of those seeds will just blow on down the dust.
Anyway, Shull captures the psychic turbulence of that realization. His character (SPOILERish? It's really not that big of a spoiler) is relatively triumphant in recentering his curriculum of choice, but the episode around Othello before it speaks to the rolling, unstoppable force of general static, and that the only productive response is to work hard, be open to humiliation, and enter every day ready for acts of redemption.
But all we want is to pull levers and see flags pop up or a coin pop out, so what other response is there to actually teaching than to be a little bit depressed for a little? The door through leads to just as much uncertainty, failure, blah, but the right angle and a belief in the forever sturdiness of the student helps it all shine agan, at least enough for a job and at most enough for a vocation. I'm in the latter now most days, but Shull captured that moment before and during compromise into a career brilliantly, and the echoes of it rolling down into early January days 14 years in.
Roughest hewn at its narrative deployments: the death of a student in the beginning pulls some of the punch from the actual tragedy of the job, robbing the teaching aspect to pay the small town aspect. The romantic elements: sure, fine, but Shull's craft is strongest in the Friday 6 pm mind. Would read more.
Outside of the text itself, the protagonists commitment to the standard classics falls into the "When I was in school..." framework, which is always a dead end and/or the fastest road to burn out. There is a line between reading a lot of books because they make students smarter and reading a lot of books because you as a teacher like them. Shull goes there with Able, but is running too fast to see the idea through to a conclusion: really interesting stuff that could grab another 100 pages.
(I don't read much self-published lit, so I have to say first and foremost this being as strong as it is without a litany of editors or resources pushed behind it speaks to the worth of this book: its contours, impulse, and scale are notably strong.)
Part of that shift or pivot involves a little bit of destroying a piece of yourself. Whether that part is noble or ignoble is up to debate. I'm more and more in the latter: so many teachers who leave, especially the downwardly mobile types depicted in this book (and myself, guilty) enter the profession with a conception of the school, class, team as a solar system--the students orbiting a thing. Whether that's the content or lesson plan or teacher varies from person to person and framework to framework. But all are wrong: there is no orbit, only an arc up and then down. The students' are vastly sturdier than any lack of the classroom could knock off. Still, yes, unbelievable, heartwarming, rapturous change can happen in the classroom: but the control over that, the ability to create it, year 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 disabuses the hope that you can press a button, pull a lever, swing a word and see something in return.
It is all scattered seeds, sown randomly, blooming too far down the line to ever know, with safe knowledge that most of those seeds will just blow on down the dust.
Anyway, Shull captures the psychic turbulence of that realization. His character (SPOILERish? It's really not that big of a spoiler) is relatively triumphant in recentering his curriculum of choice, but the episode around Othello before it speaks to the rolling, unstoppable force of general static, and that the only productive response is to work hard, be open to humiliation, and enter every day ready for acts of redemption.
But all we want is to pull levers and see flags pop up or a coin pop out, so what other response is there to actually teaching than to be a little bit depressed for a little? The door through leads to just as much uncertainty, failure, blah, but the right angle and a belief in the forever sturdiness of the student helps it all shine agan, at least enough for a job and at most enough for a vocation. I'm in the latter now most days, but Shull captured that moment before and during compromise into a career brilliantly, and the echoes of it rolling down into early January days 14 years in.
Roughest hewn at its narrative deployments: the death of a student in the beginning pulls some of the punch from the actual tragedy of the job, robbing the teaching aspect to pay the small town aspect. The romantic elements: sure, fine, but Shull's craft is strongest in the Friday 6 pm mind. Would read more.
Outside of the text itself, the protagonists commitment to the standard classics falls into the "When I was in school..." framework, which is always a dead end and/or the fastest road to burn out. There is a line between reading a lot of books because they make students smarter and reading a lot of books because you as a teacher like them. Shull goes there with Able, but is running too fast to see the idea through to a conclusion: really interesting stuff that could grab another 100 pages.
(I don't read much self-published lit, so I have to say first and foremost this being as strong as it is without a litany of editors or resources pushed behind it speaks to the worth of this book: its contours, impulse, and scale are notably strong.)
March 9, 2026
I discovered this book and author on Substack, where Peter was serialising it. I read the first couple of chapters and was hooked and decided to buy it right away. As a teacher myself - albeit English as a foreign language teacher abroad - I wish there were more academic novels out there. I've only spent a few months inside a US high school classroom (history and civics), but that short amount of time showed me what a thankless task teaching can be, not only in connecting with students, but dealing with the bureaucracy of testing, achieving standards, the politics, relationships, etc.
This excellent book manages to take us inside the inner workings of high school, as well as give us a range of characters, a coming of age tale where our protagonist grapples with his career choices, relating to his students, overcoming tragedy (in the loss of a student - not a spoiler, this happens early on) and his interactions with his staff is palpably frustrating. We can feel the tension and the angst and you finding yourself rooting for Will Able. We see the human side of what a teacher experiences and the dilemmas involved.
This book will not only make you appreciate teachers more, but will keep you thoroughly entertained throughout, desperately hoping the outcome will be a positive one for our teaching hero.
This excellent book manages to take us inside the inner workings of high school, as well as give us a range of characters, a coming of age tale where our protagonist grapples with his career choices, relating to his students, overcoming tragedy (in the loss of a student - not a spoiler, this happens early on) and his interactions with his staff is palpably frustrating. We can feel the tension and the angst and you finding yourself rooting for Will Able. We see the human side of what a teacher experiences and the dilemmas involved.
This book will not only make you appreciate teachers more, but will keep you thoroughly entertained throughout, desperately hoping the outcome will be a positive one for our teaching hero.
May 29, 2025
As an English teacher, I've read few books about teaching which resonate like "Why Teach?" Shull manages to capture the daily lives of teachers as they navigate the terrain of teaching, dealing with students, living in a community, and sadly, dealing with mindless fads.
His book shines most when confronting the conflicts facing education today: Why do we read literature? Who should we read? How does literature connect to our lives? And perhaps most of all, Why teach?
Shull has hinted about future novels, and I'm excited to see what else he has to say.
His book shines most when confronting the conflicts facing education today: Why do we read literature? Who should we read? How does literature connect to our lives? And perhaps most of all, Why teach?
Shull has hinted about future novels, and I'm excited to see what else he has to say.
April 6, 2025
If you believe in the power of literature to change a life, and want to see the bullshit that English teachers must go through to deliver a quality, book-based, literary education to their students, you’ll love this book.
It’s beautifully written, well-paced, and insightful.
Moreover, it deeply explores one of the biggest, perhaps scariest, questions we all must face — “what on earth do I do with my life?"
It’s beautifully written, well-paced, and insightful.
Moreover, it deeply explores one of the biggest, perhaps scariest, questions we all must face — “what on earth do I do with my life?"
June 15, 2025
My partner has a collection of campus fiction so I decided to read this one. Maybe end of year tired teacher shouldn’t have picked a book with a teacher having an existential crisis but it was too slow and whiny for me.
February 11, 2026
Best four dollars I’ve spent on Amazon
February 25, 2026
Quaint. Cozy. English teachers deserve their flowers!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews