Most of us had “that one weird teacher.” I had two: a publicly outed Neo-Nazi organizer and an alleged sexual predator. Maybe that’s why Avigayl Sharp’s “Uncontrollable, Irrelevant” struck a chord with me. You’ve got to give it to the Paris Review for opening their Winter 2022 issue with this whammy: two old chums pay a friendly visit to a high school teacher who was canceled for pedophilia. (He’s no Humbert Humbert figure: this guy was preying on young boys.) Beneath the dark humor lurks an urgent question: What are we willing to excuse in exchange for affection?

Published in The Paris Review, Winter 2022