Oooops, forgive me. I missed the post on Old School by Tobias Wolff, the pick of the Fiction Book Club for April. I have an excuse. I couldn't attend due to work-related travel - not even a vacation. The group, I am told, liked the book very much, as did I, if only because it takes place in my hometown. I recognized the school (The Hill School, then a private boys' school educating the likes of James Baker, a 1948 alum and this year's graduation speaker), the "village" (Pottstown, Pennsylvania, a borough in actuality), and even the picture on the cover of The Hill School dining hall, where I first ate broccoli with hollandaise sauce. My friend, Mary Hartman, lived at The Hill because her father taught there.
Wolff's book is about belonging and authenticity and how simple smudgings of the truth can result in massive consequences. That the book is also about three authors and about students as writers made it even more appealing. The writers in question were "names" who visit the school for the annual lecture, having chosen in advance the work of one student to celebrate: Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, and Ernest Hemingway. The send-up of Rand is hilarious and refreshing, given how truly venal Rand's view of humanity is. The appearance or lack thereof of Hemingway is the trope around which the story unwinds. Good stuff. Well done, Mr. Wolff. I bet we passed each other on High Street when you went off-campus and perhaps you were even at the dance where I wore my first black velvet gown.
