Reading with Patrick

Michelle Kuo’s memoir, Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship, was published in 2017 to high acclaim. Kuo has won numerous fellowships and awards for her work in teaching, writing, and law. In addition to her memoir, she has also published essays and articles. She is currently an associate professor at American University in Paris where, since 2015, she has taught in its History, Law, and Society department.

In the mid-2000s, Michelle Kuo was a recent Harvard graduate determined to use her degree to make a difference in others’ lives. Inspired by the civil rights activists of the 1960s whose tireless efforts resulted in key social changes, she joined Teach for America, which assigned her to a school in Helena, Arkansas—a town in the heart of the Delta. There, in a county that once had the highest number of lynchings on record in the 1920s and 1930s, Kuo saw how the nation’s legacies of slavery and racism have left the region economically stagnant and its citizens with meager hope to realize any dream for a better life.

Kuo was a dedicated English teacher at Stars, an alternative school for troubled students. She connected with her pupils, particularly Patrick Browning—a thoughtful and intelligent boy who revealed a raw talent for writing. After Kuo left the Delta to attend Harvard Law School, she discovered that Patrick had been arrested and charged with manslaughter after killing a man named Marcus Williamson for having an inappropriate relationship with Patrick’s underaged sister, Pam. Drunk and aggressive, Marcus confronted Patrick, which led to the latter stabbing him.

Though Kuo had moved on—graduating from law school, finding herself being courted by prestigious firms, and moving to San Francisco to take on a job with a non-profit—she couldn’t forget about the Delta and, particularly, about Patrick. She decided to return to Helena and took it upon herself to reintroduce Patrick to the world of literature that had eluded him in the dilapidated jail in which he awaited trial.

While teaching Patrick, a friend and fellow teacher from Teach for America convinced her to become a Spanish instructor at KIPP—another alternative school, though this one for high-achieving Black students bound for college. Unconvinced by her ability to teach a language she barely knew and focused primarily on helping Patrick, Kuo quit the job and made Patrick her sole pupil.

Together, Kuo and Patrick embarked on a journey through books, reading fantasies by C.S. Lewis, Frederick Douglass’s first autobiography, James Baldwin’s letter to his nephew, and a plethora of poetry. The more Patrick read, the more adept he became at articulating his feelings and understanding his personal situation.

Kuo left the Delta seven months after her second return, as she had initially promised her employer. She returned to the Bay Area and finally accepted the job with a non-profit that she had been offered, working mostly with undocumented Mexican immigrants who were denied their wages or threatened with eviction. A month after arriving in Oakland, Kuo began dating someone, embarking on the romantic life that she had put on hold for so long.

She and Patrick continued to write to each other. However, as he was moved from prison to prison, his writing suffered. On the other hand, he notified Kuo that he had the best grades in his GED class and, soon thereafter, earned his high school diploma. After serving 30 months in prison, he was released both due to overcrowding and for good behavior. He called Kuo to let her know that he had returned home. Soon after his homecoming, his mother died after suffering a diabetic seizure and hitting her head against the bathtub while showering. While Patrick slipped briefly into drug and alcohol use to contend with the loss of his mother, he eventually gets himself together and, with Kuo’s help, seems to find work at a local plant.