BOOK REVIEW / Paperbacks: Stand Before Your God by Paul Watkins, Faber pounds 6.99

This precocious autobiography by the 30-year-old American novelist tells how his parents, convinced that only an English education would do, posted him across the Atlantic, first to an Oxford prep school and then Eton. His tales of grubby-kneed initiations, casual brutality and pederastic lust are all too reminiscent of Prep Schools We Have Known. About Eton, Watkins is surprisingly affectionate. The colour of his passport was oddly irrelevant there, for Eton is itself a nationality. Whether it makes you proud or ashamed is a matter of temperament.