Home School
Published on 5. June 2008
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-0-09-950567-9 (ISBN)
Description
At the end of Charles Webb's first novel, The Graduate, Benjamin Braddock rescues his beloved Elaine from a marriage made not in heaven but in California.
It is now eleven years and 3,000 miles later, and the couple live in Westchester County, a suburb of New York City, with their two young sons, whom they are educating at home.
Through no accident, a continent now stands between them and the boys' surviving grandparent, now known as Nan, but who in former days answered to Mrs. Robinson. As the story opens, the Braddock household is in turmoil as the Westchester School Board attempts to quash the unconventional educational methods the family is practising.
Desperate situations call for desperate remedies - even a cry for help to the mother-in-law from hell. She is only too happy to provide her loving services - but at a price far higher than could be expected.
Charles Webb has a knack for pinpointing the horrors and absurdities of domestic life, and Home School displays all the precision and wit that made The Graduate such a long-lasting success..
It is now eleven years and 3,000 miles later, and the couple live in Westchester County, a suburb of New York City, with their two young sons, whom they are educating at home.
Through no accident, a continent now stands between them and the boys' surviving grandparent, now known as Nan, but who in former days answered to Mrs. Robinson. As the story opens, the Braddock household is in turmoil as the Westchester School Board attempts to quash the unconventional educational methods the family is practising.
Desperate situations call for desperate remedies - even a cry for help to the mother-in-law from hell. She is only too happy to provide her loving services - but at a price far higher than could be expected.
Charles Webb has a knack for pinpointing the horrors and absurdities of domestic life, and Home School displays all the precision and wit that made The Graduate such a long-lasting success..
Reviews / Votes
It offers a witty and bitingly accurate tale of suburban frustration whose slightness is integral to its charm. * Daily Mail * Charles Webb's sequel to THE GRADUATE sparkles with as much witand invention as the original. Throughout the book, everything - dialogue, characterisation, even incident - is pared down to a minimum, and yet the result, far from being undernourished, hums with richness and vitality. So here's to you Mrs Robinson, and to Charles Webb for doing such a fine job of resurrecting her. * Sunday Telegraph * Distinctive, wry, spare and beautifully modulated * Daily Telegraph * Forty years overdue, the sequel to The Graduate was worth the wait. A great read. * The London Paper * By utilising the same wry humour and pinpoint characterisation of the first novel, and by delving even further into the dark motives of the iconic Mrs Robinson, Webb has made this continuation of a classic believable and entertaining. * The Works * Mrs Robinson's predictably sordid involvement has predictably horrendous results and Webb wittily captures a claustrophobic family home. * The Financial Times * A delight from a master of acutely observed social comedy. -- John Preston * Sunday Times Seven Magazine *
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Cornerstone
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
293 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-09-950567-9 (9780099505679)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Charles Webb was born in California. His first novel, The Graduate, was made into the acclaimed film. Six years ago he moved to the UK to write a novel based on a English character, which was published as New Cardiff. He and his wife Fred remained in Great Britain.
Currently he is working on a novel entitled Porn Flakes, about a poet who inherits an adult book shop.
Currently he is working on a novel entitled Porn Flakes, about a poet who inherits an adult book shop.