Kevin M. McIntosh’s Class Dismissed is competing for The Great School Novel title, alongside classics such as Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim and Bel Kaufman’s Up the Down Staircase. McIntosh writes with humor and a sardonic appreciation of life’s all-too-expected travails. In Class Dismissed, the world tries to teach Patrick Lynch a lesson. He proves to be as apt a pupil as he is a successful teacher.