Seven novels about toxic student-teacher relationships

Lauren Aliza Green holds an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers. Her work has appeared in Conjunctions, American Short Fiction, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. She is the author of A Great Dark House, winner of the Poetry Society of America’s Chapbook Fellowship, and the inaugural recipient of the Eavan Boland Emerging Poet Award, sponsored by Poetry Ireland and Stanford University. Her writing has received support from the Kenyon Review Workshop, Bread Loaf, and the Carson McCullers Center.

Green's debut novel is The World After Alice.

At Electric Lit the author tagged seven favorite "touchstones of fiction that blur the line between mentorship and manipulation in fascinating yet toxic ways." One title on the list:

My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin

Florin’s debut follows Isabel, a college student at a liberal arts school in the Northeast. The book kicks off with Isabel’s sexual assault at the hands of a classmate. This event forms the backdrop for Isabel’s subsequent affair with her married professor, Connelly. Florin’s novel is equal parts coming-of-age story and retrospective, with Isabel looking back on her younger self and the choices she made.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue