A Good School: A Novel
Richard Yates
Language: English
Pages: 192
ISBN: 0312420390
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Richard Yates, who died in 1992, is today ranked by many readers, scholars, and critics alongside such titans of modern American ficiton as Updike, Roth, Irving, Vonnegut, and Mailer.
In this work, he offers a spare and autumnal novel about a New England prep school. At once a meditation on the twilight of youth and an examination of America's entry into World War II, A Good School tells the stories of William Grove, the quiet boy who becomes an editor of the school newspaper; Jack Draper, a crippled chemistry teacher; and Edith Stone, the schoolmaster's young daughter, who falls in love with most celebrated boy in the class of 1943.
(“I don’t think he cares whether I hear it or not, for God’s sake”) and more than once he had left an implication, too vague to be pressed, that he might be open to the idea of rooming with Grove next year. As for Bucky Ward, it couldn’t be denied that the fine companionship of last fall had begun to dwindle as soon as Britt got out of the infirmary. It was strengthened from time to time – there were still long nights in the Chronicle office when they were hilarious or sad together, depending on
“Again?” “Ah, yes, she keeps on coming home and coming home, and no one can explain it. I have my own theory, though.” And Lear carefully straightened his tie. He had recently begun encouraging people to call him by the spelling of his first three initials – “Ret” – probably because it suggested Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind. “I think she comes home to see me,” he said. Chapter Six When anyone asked her how she liked Miss Blair’s, Edith Stone said it was very nice. This wasn’t true
could feel the tingling surface of her skin down the whole length of her body, under her clothes; she could have sworn she felt her very womb opening up. The word “love” kept occurring to her. I’m falling in love, she thought. Oh God; oh God; I’m falling in love with Larry Gaines. When dinner was over he didn’t seem to mind anyone’s noticing how he steered her clear of the crowd, walking with his warm hand cradling her elbow. Then he guided her away from the quadrangle, away from everyone, and
out to the sandy area behind Four building, where he gathered her up close and kissed her on the mouth for a long time. In three weeks she would be seventeen, and this was the first time she had ever been kissed. Larry Gaines was overwhelming. He was brilliant, he was handsome, he was good; there was too much of him for Edith to comprehend all at once. All she knew, daydreaming and sleepwalking through the requirements of her time at Miss Blair’s during the next few days, was that she was in
he rubbed both fists in his eyes and said “Jesus, Bucky, you’re going to be dead.” And Ward looked at him narrowly. “How exactly do you mean that?” “You’re going to be dead tired on the train tomorrow, going home. How the hell did you think I meant it?” “I don’t know. I’m not putting any more interpretations on anything anybody says.” With Ward gone, Grove was free at last to devote himself to Hugh Britt. Their being roommates had seemed to promise a great advantage, but soon there was