Curriculum Vitae is a hyper-realistic character study of Ian Sloan, a forty-four-year-old high school English and journalism teacher. A fractured personal life and mundane occupation serves as the big yellow bus that carries the reader into his world.
The setting is Anesthesia-an upper middle class, Los Angeles suburb, during Reagan's 1980s. One of Ian's idealistic journalism students is on the warpath to expose controversy with the district superintendent, which could cause political disaster. Ian's ex-wife, now married to a successful tax attorney, suspects their son's recent behavior is drug-induced. His father's health is deteriorating. And to top it off, a local single mom has ensnared him in an involuntary romance.
But Ian's existence runs much deeper than his daily schedule and annoyances. Author A. B. Boyd digs deep into his character's emotional life-revealing a desire for reconciliation with his dying father, coupled with an on-and-off relationship with his own son.
Curriculum Vitae will leave the reader in a state of self-examination, realizing that suicide bridge is just a bridge, and a job is just a job-but relationships and being needed is the stuff that life is made of.
About the Author: A. B. Boyd is a former public school teacher of twenty-five years and is currently a community college adjunct.
Curriculum Vitae is his response to the clichéd portrayal of public school teachers as saviors, inspirations, and leaders who pull students up from the ashes to win against all odds. Boyd instead takes his cues from literary greats, such as John Updike, Alice McDermott, and Richard Russo to paint a raw reality of upper middle class, suburban life and the malaise that grips one upon reaching middle age.
Boyd lives with his wife in Los Angeles, where he is currently working on a second novel and polishing a collection of short stories.
In his spare time, he enjoys reading, gardening, movies, and very slow break basketball.
