A Disaffection (Paperback)

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In an ordinary comprehensive school, Patrick Doyle is twenty nine and teaching a life that feels boxed in. He is isolated, frustrated, and growing more bitter at the system he is employed to maintain, a daily grind of expectations and compliance that offers little room to breathe.

As the pressure builds, Patrick begins a rebellion, not as a grand gesture but as a slow unravelling. Drink becomes part of the rhythm, and so does the ache of his passionate, unrequited love for a fellow teacher. The school day continues, but something in him has shifted, and he can no longer pretend he is only passing through.

A Disaffection follows that drift towards refusal, as Patrick searches for a way to live that does not require him to keep swallowing what he cannot accept.