The Chatham School Affair

Read 02-11-2015

Good story. What I didn't like,foreshadowing was overdone making for a very frustrating read. Story goes back and forth in time and it seemed I would just start getting into the time frame and it would change. Not enough time to really sink your teeth into the past or present. Again very frustrating. This is the first time I have read this author and I'm not sure if I would read him again,even as interesting as his stories do look to be. ( )

This was my introduction to Thomas H. Cook...couldn't remember the name for the longest time (or his, either), but upon seeing his name on a review (the back cover of another book I was reading), knew it was he and this book...don't remember the plot, just remember that it was thoroughly enjoyed, and plan on reading all of his others.... just finished 'The Fate of Katherine Carr', also thoroughly appreciated it...'The Last Talk with Lola Faye' is next....G. ( )

Elizabeth Channing arrives at Chatham, Massachusetts to be the new art teacher at the Chatham School. She's met at the station by Arthur Griswold, headmaster and his son, Henry, who will be a sophomore in the new school year.

Channing is a romantic and Henry soon develops a puppy love for her.
A domestic at his house, Sarah Doyle, asks Channing to teach her to read and she and Henry are often at Channing's cottage working on their studies.

Leland Reed arrives to be the new poetry teacher. He's accompanied by his wife and small child. Reed and Channing are drawn together as the story moves back and forth between the peaceful start to the story and a trial taking place involving the characters.

The reader isn't sure what crime was committed but there are parallels to Dreiser's "An American Tragedy."

Winner of the Edgar Award, this is a story that will tug at the reader's heart as the characters are led to a tragedy that seems impossible to avert. ( )

[b:The Chatham School Affair|863118|The Chatham School Affair|Thomas H. Cook|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178997839s/863118.jpg|848545] is a psychological suspense novel with the narrator looking back at events that took place fifty or so years previously, when he was a teenager. It is set on Cape Cod. If I had not been reading it as part of my Edgar Best Novels Project, I probably would not have finished it. Not that it was not well written, for it was. But since the story is told in the first person, it is the narrator who is the most fully realized character, and I found him self-centered and impossible to like. The story is certainly unusual and there is quite a bit of philosophizing by several of the characters. Some of their philosophies are better than others. There are many people who like this sort of thing, and to them I can recommend this book. I, however, did not find it edifying and can safely skip Mr. Cook's other books (the edition I read had an opening chapter from a subsequent book and I could tell I wouldn't like that either.)
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