G.J. Prager?s The Lesson Plan chronicles the story of Robert Klayman, a substitute high school teacher in Los Angeles who is facing a mid-life crisis after failing to achieve any hopes of a high salary, successful career, or life; this is a man who never got his ?piece of the pie.? Klayman ?got down to business? and ?thought up a career path you can?t find in one of those self-help guides at the local bookstore,? making the decision to become a private detective.
Although it is overtly a suspenseful detective story, interwoven is the story of a mid-life crisis and portrait of life in Los Angeles. Prager?s observations are startlingly insightful, and through Klayman?s thoughts and musings, readers are left with deeper messages about life and humanity, for example: ?Life can play clever tricks on us mortals who wait desperately for dreams to come true, realizing only too late that it?s an end game and much too short at that. Reaching middle age without accumulating a formidable bank account can leave a man bitter and emasculated, ruminating on every lost opportunity that ever came his way.? Klayman stumbles through life, trying on careers, personas, and women-all in an attempt to find a deeper meaning and a sense of self. With each new job, Klayman tries to ?find himself,? adopting personas that range from Humphrey Bogart to Jay Gatsby.
Prager offers perspectives on life in Los Angeles through his astute assessments, revealed through the musings and conversations of Klayman, who ruminates that it is a ?cold hard fact that a man?s self-respect starts at around two hundred grand a year in the City of Angels,? his sardonic comment that he joined ?AA. Actors Anonymous,? and his reflections that he lives in a ?mindless? city where he is ?just going through the motions? and ?Everyone?s grabbing a piece of the pie and leaving me with nothing but crumbs.? Prager interweaves Albert Hammond?s cynical lyrics to ?It Never Rains in California? with the thoughts of Klayman, another broken Californian-which inevitably becomes the theme song readers will associate with the hero.
Klayman gets swept up investigating a criminal drug ring that is working out of the Los Angeles Unified School District, following a teacher, Ms. Briggs, who is murdered one week subsequent to her request to be transferred to another school. Klayman believes Ms. Briggs came too close to the truth for the comfort of the well-respected man who lies at the center of the intrigue. The Lesson Plan offers both an intriguing plot and the artistic rendering of a man flailing in his mid-life crisis, seeking desperately for a meaningful identity.
Through his deep assessments of humanity and the city of Los Angeles, Prager offers readers insights and themes that are thought provoking and lend to the strength of the novel, coming to speak for both a generation and a city.
Find out more about The Lesson Plan by visiting thelessonplannovel.com
Source: http://www.byjean.com/book-review-the-lesson-plan-gettingbookreviews-com-9184.html
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