The Optimists: A Novel by Brian Platzer

Named one of Sarah Jessica Parker’s Favorite Books of Early 2026 

Literary Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026  

“Warm, funny, and frequently touching. If the impulse to contact your favorite teacher arises after reading it, don’t be surprised.”  —Shelf Awareness 

“Brilliant…What will stick with readers most are the multi-dimensional portraits of complicated, flawed human beings, most notably the novel’s narrator. Keening, darkly funny, and gruffly tender.” —Kirkus Reviews  

“Humorous and poignant…It’s a delight.” —Publishers Weekly 

A beloved schoolteacher chronicles the meteoric rise of his most dazzling student in this ambitious, big-hearted story of learning and legacy. For readers of Nathan Hill, Susan Choi, and Tess Gunty, The Optimists is about the unexpected, extraordinary people who leave an indelible mark on our lives. 

Meet Mr. Keating.  For decades, Mr. Keating taught middle-school English at St. George’s Episcopal School in lower Manhattan.  He was a magician in the classroom, using his brilliance, humor, and vivid imagination to enchant eighth graders into a mastery of composition and grammar. He developed a pedagogy of joy, embodied in his “Ember Exam”—the epic, 200-question test that became his life’s work.  
 
Now retired and bound to a wheelchair after a stroke, Mr. Keating  writes  a novel about his most exceptional student, Clara Hightower.  Clara is the only student to  meet the challenge of the  Ember Exam, and over the course of three decades, Clara is a kindergarten thief, a high school genius, a Silicon Valley celebrity, and an animal  rights activist turned terrorist.   
  
To tell Clara’s story, Mr. Keating must also tell his own, including his courtship and marriage, his dreams of writing and comedy,  his rivalry and friendship with the  Head of School, and his days  spent in his classroom, which he calls “Ember Land.”  
 
A middle-school teacher himself, author Brian Platzer writes about being an educator with humor, honesty, and refreshing hopefulness. His prose is precise and propulsive, and he effortlessly weaves his charming, complicated characters in and out of each other’s lives. Part love story, part joke book, and part meditation on life and death, The Optimists is a profound testament to the lessons that reach far beyond the classroom.  

“Charming…Platzer’s amiable story is a love letter to teaching and knock-knock jokes alike.”  —Library Journal 
 
“Great books are like great teachers: they are wise, humane, compassionate, and they illuminate the world in ways we never knew were possible. The Optimists is all of this and more.” —Nathan Hill, author of Wellness 
 
“Weaving together a cast of believably flawed, human characters…Platzer’s sad, wistful, and moving [The Optimists] is also filled with humor and tenderness.” —Booklist 

SELECT UPCOMING EVENTS (for a list of all events, visit Brian’s website):  
Cooper Union, with Sarah Jessica Parker, New York, NY, February 24, 2026
[words] bookstore, with Matthew Thomas, Maplewood, NJ, February 26, 2026
Totally Booked! Live, New York, NY, March 1, 2026
Politics & Prose at The Wharf, with Matthew Yglesias, Washington, DC, March 4, 2026
Flyleaf Books, with Joanna Pearson, Chapel Hill, NC, March 10, 2026 
Greenlight Bookstore, with Adam Gidwitz, Brooklyn, NY, March 18, 2026
SUNY New Paltz, with Kristopher Jansma New Paltz, NYApril 23, 2026  

BRIAN PLATZER was the education columnist for The Atlantic and has written frequently for The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, and many other publications. He currently teaches and lives with his family in Brooklyn and Paris. 
 
Early Praise for The Optimists 
  
“Memorably moving…The Optimists is a virtuoso performance that may very well prompt readers to get in touch with their own favorite teachers.”—BookPage, starred review
 
“Brian Platzer’s novel is endearing, and his descriptions of schoolhouse politics feel true — which makes sense, since he’s a Manhattan middle-school teacher.”—New York Magazine
 
“A funny, moving fable about destiny and our human drive to connect and make a difference.”—Reader’s Digest
 
“You know those social media accounts that share much-needed true everyday stories of hope, kindness and unexpected grace from strangers and librarians that give us a moment of respite and uplift? This is a novel-length version.”—Zoomer Magazine
 
“Great books are like great teachers: they are wise, humane, compassionate, and they illuminate the world in ways we never knew were possible. The Optimists  is all of this and more.  It’s  a beautiful novel about how we love, how we remember, and how—if  we’re  lucky—we get to mean something to someone else.”  —Nathan Hill, author of Wellness 
 
“The Optimists is engaging and propulsive from the outset, and the novel deepens and surprises along the way, gathering itself up into a work of startling poignancy. Brian Platzer writes with grace and witty precision about the varieties of human feeling, and he’s a font of above-average knock-knock jokes to boot.”  —Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask 
 
“This is a highly original novel, full of affection and intelligence, and of insights into the world of teachers, eighth graders, parents and children, teenagers and the story of love. Read it!” —Roxanna Robinson, author of Leaving 
 
“The Optimists will make you nostalgic for your favorite grade school teacher—or the one you wish you’d had. With wonderful pacing, heart, and wit, Brian Platzer’s winsome story speaks to the enduring power of our best selves, which are often formed in childhood and, if we are lucky, stay with us. This book is a true delight!”  —Eileen Garvin, author of The Music of Bees 
 
“In The Optimists, Brian Platzer captures the life-or-death stakes of teaching in a way that few other novels have. I was so impressed by the way it manages its complex mix of humor and tragedy, and I found myself consistently surprised by the elegance of its revelations. Even as a committed pessimist, I was wholly won over by The Optimists.”  —Andrew Martin, author of Early Work 
 
“The long tail, in both lives, of the relationship between that one great teacher and that one special student. Come for the gloriously corny jokes and arcane grammar tips, stay for the salutary tale of two very different people trying to figure out what it means to lead a well spent life.” —Jonathan Dee, Pulitzer finalist for The Privileges 
 
“The Optimists by Brian Platzer manages the neat trick of being both an incredibly engaging story—told by a hugely appealing, joke-addicted, Yankees-loving, true-believer of a narrator—and a smart, subtle, unsparing look at a quarter century of recent US history, which encompasses tech-start-up culture, eco-activism, big-city income inequality and Ponzi wreckage. This is a wonderful, big-hearted novel and deserves every reader lucky enough to get their hands on it.” —Laird Hunt, National Book Award for Fiction finalist for Zorrie 
 
“The hothouse world of precious academics and precocious children is as strange a place as any to find hope, but the school at the center of The Optimists is such a place. It is the ideal setting for fragile but enduring love, love between young and brilliant students under the fascinated and watchful eye of a loving educator. A book for anyone who has had an unlikely future shaped by a brilliant teacher, which is all of us, isn’t it?”   —Stephen Marche, author of On Writing and Failure