A Good School

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A Good School is a short novel by Richard Yates first published in 1978. It is set at a Connecticut prep school in the early 1940s and -- without describing a single lesson, exam, sporting event, or even the subject of the pupils' study -- relates the coming of age of a group of mainly WASP boys who at the same time prepare themselves, if half-heartedly, to go to war immediately after graduation. A Good School also delves into the complicated private lives of some of the masters and their love-hate relationship to both their profession and the particular school they are teaching at.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

That particular school is Dorset Academy, a small private institution dependent on its now senile founder, an old lady who, to name just one of her follies, would not allow students to have sports competitions with other schools. Dorset Academy is at best second-rate, with Dr Stone, the English master, the only Harvard man. However, throughout the book, parents, teachers and even students assert that it is "a good school", although occasionally they admit that it is also "a funny school".

In the "Foreword", the first person narrator, 15 year-old William Grove, relates what makes his mother, divorced from her husband, decide on Dorset Academy for her son. The main body of the novel is told in the third person, with Grove retreating into a group of schoolmates only to re-emerge at the end of the book, in the "Afterword", which is told from a distance of more than 30 years. There, William Grove, now a writer, looks back nostalgically on Dorset Academy where, as the editor of the school paper, he learned "the rudiments of my trade".

As one of the masters puts it, the school harbours "a tremendous amount of sheer sexual energy". This is certainly true of the boys, who enjoy their game of selecting one of the weaker boys, pinning him down on his bed and masturbating him to the point of ejaculation. On the other hand, they try hard to hide their erections from adults and girls, whether it is Dr Stone's beautiful daughter Edith or the girls arriving for the annual Spring Dance. But also the teachers suffer under too much sexual energy, especially Jack Draper, the chemistry master, crippled from polio, who becomes the witness of his wife's crude attempts to hide her affair with Jean-Paul La Prade, the French master. When, towards the end of the novel, it is announced that Dorset Academy will have to close down for good, Draper decides to hang himself in his chemistry lab rather than send off hundreds of letters of application. However, he is too weak to push the chair away from under his feet, and fails miserably. With La Prade having joined the army, he is reunited with his estranged wife.

The "Foreword" and the "Afterword" create the impression of Yates, the author, directly addressing his audience and could be seen as false documents.