Darrin R. Berard

Stronger Darrin R. Berard

The sign?s bold, Gothic letters playfully warn students to ?abandon hope? once they step inside his classroom. He doesn?t actually mean it, though. Lowell High School English teacher Daniel Teague, a literature lover with a twisted sense of humor, simply finds it funny. He is, after all, the same teacher who asked to move into Room 101 because he always reads George Orwell?s "1984" with his seniors. When the principal forbids Teague from hanging the sign above his classroom door before school opens for 2001-2002, Teague never imagines how important that line?and Dante?s own journey?will become for him in the impending months. Literature will become life. As the school year ends, the thirty-two year old teacher feels like he has it all: a beautiful and loving wife, a growing family, and a fulfilling career. On the eve of summer vacation, Teague?s world turns upside down. A shocking brain tumor diagnosis sets him on a painful journey of self-discovery, from heartache to hope. With his wife, Virginia, as his guide, Teague navigates the rocky terrain of a fourteen-hour surgery at a Boston hospital to remove a golf-ball sized tumor from his skull, treatment for double vision, more surgery to repair his damaged facial nerves, and months of proton radiation treatments. Along the way, Teague learns that what does not kill us makes us stronger. This moving novel draws structural inspiration from Dante Alighieri?s "Divine Comedy." "Stronger" has three parts. It begins with "Purgatorio," and the novel?s opening section finds Teague in limbo with a vague awareness that something isn?t right with his body. The second part is "Inferno," taking readers through the hellish surgery and treatment Teague endures on his road back to health. The final part is "Paradiso," which finds Teague learning to live and love again.