THE PRIVATE LIVES OF TEACHERS by Joseph A. Wellman

iUniverse
2021 Pine Lake Rd, Lincoln, NE
www.iuniverse.com
Genre: General Fiction
Rating: Good
ISBN: 0595427251, $19.95, 331 pp.

This novel is about one year in the lives of fourteen Payson High School teachers, their relationships and daily struggles. Rather than Payson High, the school could have been called Payton Place High as Joseph Wellman’s stories tend to include all types of sexual activity. In The Private Lives of Teachers he jumps right to it starting on page 2, and I quote:

"He’s staring now at Teri’s chest. Her sweat-soaked T-shirt is making her breasts visible through the flimsy cloth. ‘Look I said I’m sorry. I thought Tom was in here and he’s hard of hearing. And I assumed...’ His voice trails off, as he’s mesmerized by her nipples standing out like two dark beacons on the field of white as the T-shirt clings to her sweat drenched skin."

And from there the sexual sparing begins: Teri Jacobs is candid, direct and outspoken as she ‘comes on’ to Jack Schroeder, a married man who hasn’t had sex in a year. An interesting beginning.

Among Wellman’s characters there is usually one woman who has prostituted herself at sometime in her life, then changed her ways. There is also a woman who had sexual relations with a younger man.

Joseph A. Wellman is a retired psychology/sociology teacher and a good writer, not an exceptional writer, just a good writer. If you like stories with lots of sexual content, you will probably enjoy Wellman’s novels.

Reviewed by Kaye Trout - April 17, 2007