The Year of the Gadfly
Language: English
Pages: 387
ISBN: B005OCARAM
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
“Do you know what it took for Socrates’ enemies to make him stop pursuing the truth?”
“Hemlock.”
Storied, fiercely competitive Mariana Academy was founded with a serious honor code; its reputation has been unsullied for decades. Now a long-dormant secret society, Prisom's Party, threatens its placid halls with vigilante justice, exposing students and teachers alike for even the most minor infraction.
Iris Dupont, a budding journalist whose only confidant is the chain-smoking specter of Edward R. Murrow, feels sure she can break into the ranks of The Devil’s Advocate, the Party’s underground newspaper, and there uncover the source of its blackmail schemes and vilifying rumors. Some involve the school’s new science teacher, who also seems to be investigating the Party. Others point to an albino student who left school abruptly ten years before, never to return. And everything connects to a rare book called Marvelous Species. But the truth comes with its own dangers, and Iris is torn between her allegiances, her reporter's instinct, and her own troubled past.
The Year of the Gadfly is an exhilarating journey of double-crosses, deeply buried secrets, and the lifelong reverberations of losing someone you love. Following in the tradition of classic school novels such as A Separate Peace, Prep, and The Secret History, it reminds us how these years haunt our lives forever.
before the sleepover, but now Lily imagined devoting an entry to Sacrificial Lamb, discussing what the girls had done to her in clinical, scientific terms. It never occurred to her during the months she’d spent in the art studio that if she joined this world, she’d inevitably become part of the appendix herself. A marvelous life form, an organism to be studied. And that was what had happened. During the lost hours of her drugged oblivion, she’d become the specimen under the microscope. A knock
of her, pressing her back, holding her arms against the bed. The book fell out of her hands. She tried to speak, but her voice was muffled beneath him. He was kissing the sides of her neck, her throat. “Justin,” she gasped. He pulled off of her. “What’s wrong?” He looked terrified. “Did I hurt you?” Lily shook her head. They sat for a moment without looking at each other. “You never did anything like that before,” she said, finally. “You didn’t like it.” “No—I just—I didn’t know what was
ferret out Prisom’s Party. My room yielded nothing, and I moved on. The door to my brother’s room was framed by two long-horned beetles, Macrodontia cervicornis, each of them half a foot in length. The mandibles resembled miniature lobster claws, and wings sheathed their abdomens like wooden skirts. They were brilliant, these wings, decorated like cave drawings and varnished in shades of brown, chestnut, and gold. My parents used to call the beetles “mezuzahs” and joked about our having to kiss
way. But then I made a faulty step, ran smack into some evil-eyed mushroom, and was forced to start over. The irony, of course, was that even though the game had reset (literally sent me back to home base), I already had the princess within my sights. I drove to the Historical Society after school. Part of me wanted nothing more than to spend my life with Hazel, creating a replica of Rick and Mary Ann Rayburn’s home, a perfectly calibrated fusion of bright lights and finger paints. This image
You’re after something.” I was trying to get inside Mr. Kaplan’s mind, but I couldn’t tell Peter that. “There are some people here who are suspicious of Mr. Kaplan,” I said. “But they just don’t understand him.” “And you do?” I told Peter Hazel’s theory about kindred spirits, omitting the details about Dalia and Justin’s possible suicide. As he listened, his face changed; his eyes widened like something was welling up inside of him and was about to burst out. “What’s going on?” I said. “Are