Paperback: A Good School, by Richard Yates

Vintage £7.99

Richard Yates, whose work has enjoyed a steady critical revival over the past decade, is now as familiar a name to British readers as Raymond Carver. A Good School, first published in 1978, is one of his later novels and his best. Set against the backdrop of Pearl Harbour, this slim volume takes the lid off life in a shabby Connecticut boarding school: the love affairs between teachers, the faithlessness between boys. Written in measured, precise prose, it deals out mortification and humiliation with an even hand. Cynical about most of his characters from corporate types to would be bohemians Yates sums up 1940s America in seven chapters.