I had never failed a class before.

Professor Elias Kane’s advanced literature seminar was supposed to be difficult, but not impossible. I turned in every paper on time. I spoke when called on. I sat in the second row and took notes like my scholarship depended on it—because it did. Yet when the midterm grades posted, a red F sat next to my name like a wound.

I waited until the rest of the students filed out after the Thursday evening session. The lecture hall emptied. Elias Kane remained at the front desk, stacking papers with precise, unhurried movements. He was in his early forties, tall, always in dark button-downs...