A good school

His hair hangs greasy over his forehead, and his threadbare shirt is adorned with a pattern of stains. William Grove, fifteen years old and recently accepted as a scholarship student at Dorset Academy, quickly receives the label: none of the boys at the boarding school want anything to do with this "gypsy." Grove cannot hide that he comes from a working-class background. Yet, this is precisely what he is supposed to learn at Dorset, a bastion of English educational traditions—his mother hopes that this will open doors to the upper class for her son, doors that have remained closed to her, a great artist, despite all her efforts. Richard Yates, the master of clear prose, skillfully and sensitively paints the psychological portrait of a boy who still needs to find his place in society.