An unsentimental memoir of being an American in English boarding
schools - the first nonfiction from the author of The Promise of
Light (1993), etc. Watkins registers his shock as a small boy upon
being left by his father at the Dragon School near Oxford. A dreamy
child, he learns to endure a sadistic teacher's beatings and the
special ways the English have of dealing with such intruders as
"Our New Friend from the Colonies." Watkins shows how quickly
children can accept extreme conditions and get on with the concerns
of childhood, from pillow fights to G.I. Joes, and once,
blissfully, an outing in a small airplane with his visiting father.
But home in Rhode Island on vacations, he doesn't fit in anymore:
"From now on I would be intruding in both places," he remarks, and
writing stories begins to make him feel less lonely, "free to
travel across the centuries, in and out of people's hearts and
minds." Soon after Watkins moves up to Eton, his father dies of
cancer. His father, a Welshman, had also gone to the Dragon School
but had always felt inferior to Etonians, and Watkins here depicts
an Eton in love with itself and its history; forced to be a good
little soldier in school, he identifies with the Eton fallen of WW
I and II, and the historical novels begin to take shape. His more
personal experience of school, however, is explored less deeply
than one could wish - his regret at not having made more friends at
Eton, his motives for reporting two boys he found in bed together,
his reaction to a classmate's suicide. A graceful and ultimately
sad account that tends to keep to the surface but, even so, makes
us question assumptions about education, tradition, and the elite.
(Kirkus Reviews)
This autobiography follows Paul Watkins's early life and schooling
at the Dragon School, Eton and Yale. Born in 1963, Watkins is the
author of The Promise of Light and Night Over Day Over Night, which
were both nominated for the Booker Prize.
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