A Bond for Life

Serious Things 

by Gregory Norminton

"Though he did not consent to friendship, the tall and beautiful English boy had acknowledged my existence."   - Gregory Norminton, Serious Things






I was impressed with how this narrative of two young boys is presented in a unique way narrated by one of the two preemintent characters in the story. The book emphasizes the psychological effects of our actions and the importance of how our lives are influenced by how we respond to those actions.

The story tells of two lads at a traditional boarding school who develop a close bond that will influence the rest of their lives. Anthony Blunden has Bruno Jackson, the quiet and lonely son of British expatriates, completely smitten. The boys are inspired to investigate the "more serious matters" of life outside of college after being taken under the wing of an idealistic English teacher. But, in the intense environment of the school, a slight from their mentor looks to be of utter significance and will have irrevocable effects. 

Years later, with those memories all but forgotten, Bruno lives a blameless life. Anthony's unexpected reappearance pushes him to look back on his dark past and determine how far he is willing to go to appease his conscience.

Overall it is both riveting and a subtle novel about an undetected crime and its corrosive legacy for the schoolboy culprits, by a young writer that I would recommend to all.

An Unfortunate Affair

The Dog in the Chapel 

by Anthony McDonald

“Tom & Christopher and Their Kind.”

― Anthony McDonald, The Dog in the Chapel

A story of two young men, 21 and 18, who fell in love in the summer of 1962 but who had the unfortunate circumstance of being employed as instructors in a Catholic preparatory school at the time, is at the center of this tragic-comic tale. Tom and Christopher are their names. Father Louis, the senior headmaster, is standing in the corner opposite them. He believes that the 1960s will be remembered as the decade in which the Catholic Church achieved its heavenly victory. When Miss O'Deere, the art mistress, decides to paint Tom and Christopher as David and Jonathan and put the finished product in a public exhibition, Tom and Christopher's lives become more complicated. Not to mention the bothersome attentions that 13-year-old Angelo Dexter gave them.

Headmaster for Life

The Rector of Justin 

by Louis Auchincloss

“I was sophisticated enough to know that the written word is no mirror of the writer’s character, that the amateur, though a selfless angel, may show himself a pompous ass, while the professional, a monster of ego, can convince you in a phrase that he has the innocence of a child. I”   ― Louis Auchincloss, The Rector of Justin

This novel is considered by many to be a modern classic. Whether you share that opinion or not, I believe it certainly represents the author's best work in the genre. Through his skillful use of multiple narrators and viewpoints, he underscores the elusive nature of human truth, necessarily subjective in our individual perspectives, yet ultimately existing in reality no matter how difficult to discern. In his narrative he highlights the inevitable moral blindness implicit in much human endeavor.

The narrative presents the life story of Francis Prescott, from his youth as a schoolboy to his death at age 85. As Dr. Francis Prescott, he is the Rector (headmaster) and founder of the exclusive New England Episcopalian boys' school Justin Martyr (a famous prep school). The multiple narrators' attitudes toward their subject range from veneration to hatred, thus providing a depth of character that infuses the book and elucidates effectively the somewhat larger-than-life central character of the Rector. Through the character, actions, and career of Frank Prescott, Auchincloss shows both the benefits and the dangers of such a character; the dangers are perhaps most evident to Prescott himself who, perceiving the true nature of his accomplishment at the end of his life, honestly believes that he has failed in his appointed task.

Louis Auchincloss, himself a Wall Street attorney and a product of Groton, among the most eminent of American preparatory schools, has often used such schools in his fiction to help delineate the background formation of his characters. Never before or since, however, has he so successfully presented the implicit irony, or even absurdity, of the existence in the United States of an educational alternative frankly based on the elitist British public school yet ostensibly dedicated to the ideals of democracy. The book is both well written and compulsively readable, and a fine introduction to this modern author. If you enjoy this novel I would recommend Auchincloss's short stories.

Thoughts in a Journal

Paper Covers Rock 
by Jenny Hubbard


"Lose an arm in the tow, 
shed the shell, breathe
farewell in the waves."  (p 130)

"Poetry is a way of seeing the world with your feelings." (p 148)

The book opens with the narrator explaining why, after two years of letting the journal his father gave him when he went away to boarding school lay fallow on his shelf, he is now writing in his journal. The narrator, Alex Stromm, is writing the journal for himself spurred to do so by the death of his friend and classmate, Thomas Broughton, from drowning. Alex's thoughts, feelings, and overall reaction to this event comprise the rest of the novel. The story he tells involves another friend, Glenn, and a special teacher, Miss Dovecott, who is just a few years older than Alex, the junior student, and who encourages his writing especially his budding efforts at poetry. As he records his thoughts in the journal his relationships, both school and family, become clearer. There are a few touching moments such as Alex's letter of condolence to Thomas' parents that opens, "I have been wanting to write for a couple of weeks now, but I did not know exactly what to say or how to say it, so I have put it off. Now I realize that I will never know exactly what to say or how to say it. . . " (pp 64-65) Both the poetry and the prose in the book limn a young student of above-average ability. The writing ability helps Alex express his feelings about both love and death as he tries to move forward in his school life. Near the end of the book he writes, "...and he'll leave it as others have left it, as others will leave it, boys stepping into who they are without ever having known who they were." (p 163) , suggesting he still has work to do, and he is developing the maturity to do so.

The book is laced with literary references, primarily to Moby-Dick which inspired Alex's literary nom de plume of "Is Male". This is both a literary reference and a symbol of his young male hormones that are as much a reason as any for his crush on Miss Dovecott. The tone throughout is one of mystery and melancholy; mystery as to the nature of Alex's involvement with the death of his friend Thomas and melancholy as his feelings are poured out over the pages of his journal. The result is a subtle portrayal of how one teenager matures through dealing with loyalty, honor, and love in a boarding school environment.  While the novel is reminiscent of John Knowles' A Separate Peace, it does not quite match that novel's literary heft.  However, I was impressed with the author's lucid prose and moved by the slight story. I appreciated young Alex's appreciation of reading in the opening pages when he wrote in his journal, "Read to your heart's content. Though if you are a reader, the heart is never content." (p 2)


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