His son hated him, none of his books were published, and his high school class was so unpopular it could have been cut. He had a girlfriend, even if they kept it a secret from everyone else. There was another English teacher at school, Mike, with whom Lance often compared socially. Mike was a young, fit teacher with a very popular class that was always full, and he was also kidnapping Lance's girlfriend. Lance was understandably jealous of him. When Mike got an article published in the New Yorker, Lance tried to make a downward comparison by saying, "It's not a national [magazine]." (Also, as a side note, Mike was very modest about himself in this scene