Dorothy Bryant

Miss Giardino Dorothy Bryant

    Faithful followers of Dorothy Bryant's work revere this subtle, lyrical, and moving novel, originally published in 1978, as a rare testament to the inner life of a teacher and of an older woman struggling to rediscover her place in a world which, increasingly, seems to have no need for her.

   As the novel begins, 68-year-old retired teacher Anna Giardino wakes up in a hospital after having been found lying unconscious in front of Camino Real High School in San Francisco's Mission District, where she taught for 40 years. She cannot remember what has happened and is unsure even of who she is. In the week  that follows, Anna Giardino slowly regains her memory, and the events of her past gradually unfold in a series of flashbacks.

   The daughter of working-class, Italian-American parents, Anna recalls her bitter girlhood fights with her father, a tyrannical man hardened and defeated by the struggles of immigrant life; her devotion to her mother and feelings of loyalty toward her family, which clash painfuly with her need for growth and escape; and, above all, her longing to read and to embrace education, which in turn inspires her mission as a teacher. Resolving to teach her students at all costs, and determined to help them break through the barriers imposed by class, race, and expectation, Miss Giardino becomes the epitome of the incorruptible older teacher: strict and exacting, she is feared and detested, but respected-and sometimes even loved.

   Memories of the relationships which punctuated Anna's mostly solitary life also resurface: her first college romance, crossing class and ethnic lines, with a charming but self-absorbed classmate; a passionate but confusing affair with a Mexican man she met while on vacation; and an intense, deep love for a student, which-although the feeling is returned-can never be openly expressed.

   Visits to the hospital from old friends, old lovers, and a former student, as well as an unexpected letter from the student she had loved, unleash a myriad of ambiguous feelings. For as the past and present merge and intertwine, Anna acknowledges that she has arrived at the end of her career estranged- from herself, from her profession, and from the very students she sought to enlighten. Only when she recalls and confronts the events surrounding her mysterious "accident" does Anna reach an understanding of her experiences and feelings and a real acceptance and affirmation of her life.