A Good School: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: The other "school" book
Review: A lot's been made of the fine "A Separate Peace," but "A Good School" brings Yates' eye -- which was one of the best, most unheralded of 20th century American writers -- to the twists of coming of age in a prep school. Nobody captured the shades and shadows of dialog like Yates, and few have made characters of any age so vivid in their grappling with pain and yearning. Anyone who's ever been a teenager will devour this novel.

That Richard Yates never made the gears of New York turn for him is an error of the publishing industry that's impossible to calculate; that "A Good School" is not mandatory reading for anyone interested in young people is a loss to every reader of the genre.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Novel
Review: Richard Yates is one of the few truly great masters of 20th century fiction. His novels and short stories are populated with people who fiercely strive for what is just beyond their grasp, and who must - often quite painfully - suffer the consequences of their hopes and ambitions. The beauty of watching as these lives savagely unfold is the compassion Yates so delicately weaves into his depictions. First we feel a kind of condescending pity for these characters, then we find we are overwhelmed with their plight and their grief. And then finally the line between fiction and reality blurs, and we realize that these characters are not merely so much like us, they are us - with their denial and their fantasy and their unfounded hope in the future - and we grieve for them as we grieve for ourselves.
His short coming-of-age "A Good School" is something of a departure from the typical Yatesian heartbreak and squalor. In fact, the tone here, despite some shockingly grim and disturbing moments, is mostly upbeat. We follow the adolescent adventures of a boy named William Grove, a man with no real father figure (his parents are divorced) who tries to make a man out of himself after he is shipped to a boarding school designed for "individual" children who don't fit in elsewhere. Left to his own devices, without any real encouragement from the school or at home, and after several difficult missteps that nearly cement him as a permanent outcast, Grove slowly and unknowingly begins to make a name for himself by throwing himself into the only small door he is ever offered - the offices of the school paper.
The cast of the book is rounded out by in intriguing hodge-podge of boarding school characters, equally flailing around in their quest to become men. Even though their stories are unfolding off to the side, Yates somehow manages to tell each of their stories with a richness and intensity that belies their sparseness.
This is ground that has been covered before. One cannot help but think of other prep school novels (like Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" and Hesse's "Beneath the Wheel") but even in familiar territory, Yates stakes out a claim all his own. This is a short, spare book filled with dozens of stories that build and develop throughout the novel. Old Yates fans will be pleased with this surprising detour into the world of adolescence, the unusual lightness of his tone, and the freshness of his view from this familiar literary perch. For new readers, I would definitely suggest reading the novel "Revolutionary Road," or some of the short stories first. But all in all, a must-read for everyone. I recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: YATES CONSISTENTLY DELIVERS GREAT BOOKS
Review: Richard Yates is probably one of the greatest writers of the latter half of the 20th century. It is a shame that more attention is not paid to his works and that I had to wait until my senior year in college before I had even heard of him.

He is a master of getting at the core of human emotion. The frustration, anger, jealousy, pity, and loss that his characters experience is so real and raw that the reader almost feels uncomfortable at times just reading the words - almost as if Yates has transformed his audience into morbidly fascinated voyeurs, unable to look away but knowing that they should.

If one is to accomplish nothing else in their literary pursuits, they should take it upon themselves to read every book that Yates ever published. It is amazing what one can take away about themselves after reading his novels.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Novel
Review: Yates dedicated this novel to his father, and rightly so. Men dominate this novel -- young men, old men, crippled men. In keeping with his trademark, Yates' characters are the losers of losers, yet you can't help but to feel for them. Even when Yates is describing one horribly embarrassing scene after another (and some are so painful that you almost have to look away from the page), his compassion for his people is ever vigilent.

This novel reminded me a lot of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. Like the George Willard in that quasi-novel, we have Will Grove, dipping in and out of the lives of various characters. The town of Winesburg was the center of that novel, and here it's Dorset Academy, the ultimate school for losers (what else would it be?). Although Winesburg was structurally a related collection of short stories while this is more of a novel, you still get that vignette-ish feeling as you read through A Good School, the way Yates joins quick scenes together. It works splendidly.

The book is framed by first-person narration that adds a very gentle touch. Yates always had a soft spot for the first-person narrator -- check out his short stories "Builders," "Jody Rolled the Bones," and "Oh Joseph, I'm So Tired" for further evidence. This novel doesn't nearly have the sheer driving force of Revolutionary Road or the expert precision of Easter Parade, but it's not supposed to. It's a tender, coming-of-age tale, and it's done with a great deal of heart and love.

Rating:
Summary: For His Father
Review: Yates dedicated this novel to his father, and rightly so. Men dominate this novel -- young men, old men, crippled men. In keeping with his trademark, Yates' characters are the losers of losers, yet you can't help but to feel for them. Even when Yates is describing one horribly embarrassing scene after another (and some are so painful that you almost have to look away from the page), his compassion for his people is ever vigilent.

This novel reminded me a lot of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. Like the George Willard in that quasi-novel, we have Will Grove, dipping in and out of the lives of various characters. The town of Winesburg was the center of that novel, and here it's Dorset Academy, the ultimate school for losers (what else would it be?). Although Winesburg was structurally a related collection of short stories while this is more of a novel, you still get that vignette-ish feeling as you read through A Good School, the way Yates joins quick scenes together. It works splendidly.

The book is framed by first-person narration that adds a very gentle touch. Yates always had a soft spot for the first-person narrator -- check out his short stories "Builders," "Jody Rolled the Bones," and "Oh Joseph, I'm So Tired" for further evidence. This novel doesn't nearly have the sheer driving force of Revolutionary Road or the expert precision of Easter Parade, but it's not supposed to. It's a tender, coming-of-age tale, and it's done with a great deal of heart and love.