“An unsentimental yet moving narrative, a sobering alternative to Dead Poets Society and To Sir, With Love. With its deep probing look at the teaching profession, it unveils a rich array of themes—homosexual awakening, human actions and consequences, the individual in conflict with society, and most compellingly, the nature of perhaps the most noble and difficult of vocations.” —Boey Kim Cheng, author of Clear Brightness One last time and on her birthday, Rose de Souza is returning to school to give a final lesson to her classroom of secondary school boys before retiring from her long teaching career. What ensues is an unexpected confession in which she recounts the tragic and traumatic story of Amir, a student from her past who overturned the way she saw herself as a teacher, and changed her life forever. This stunning first novel from award-winning poet Cyril Wong is a tour de force, an exceptional examination of the power of choice and the unreliability of memory.