The Cult Teacher

About the Book

A middle-aged Hare Krishna dropout struggles with his own bipolar personality while attempting to teach English in an unsympathetic New Orleans public school. He must deal with disrespectful, hyperactive students who go unchecked by administrators while he endeavors to teach the sincere and gifted students who appreciate him.

About the Author

When I was in high school, Mr. Marin, my Honors English teacher, would prophesize that one day, I would become a great and famous writer. He would do so, not in a mocking way, but with good humor. “We have the great books of Emerson, Thoreau, Steinbeck, and Rosenthal,” he would say. My legal name is Martin Rosenthal; my pen name is Phillip Ahtmann. It was also my good fortune to fall in with a group of like–minded, liberal Jewish friends who all aspired to find the truth and beauty pursued in the fine arts. Two were musicians, two were writers, and one was both. I wrote poetry and philosophy. In the early 1990s, my wife began to encourage me to write a novel. I was teaching high school English, and she was impressed with the writing style I employed in my tests and essays to the class, along with my poetry, much of which was written to her. She felt that I was a good teacher and that I could impart the wisdom of my experience through a novel. I wrote The Cult Teacher from 1998 to 2000 and copyrighted it in 2003. It underwent various revisions over the years, and I am still editing and augmenting the manuscript.