Your standard fish-out-of-water campus novel goes like this: Scholarship kid finds themself surrounded by absurdly wealthy children only to get caught up in their wicked ways. The “hayseed goes to the big city” premise always delivers—especially the makeover phase when the interloper MC learns the ropes (too well) and gets semi-corrupted before righting themself.
But I’ve read this story many times over so I certainly wasn’t going to write a campus novel following this arc. My boarding school book, To Have and Have More, is about the rich kids who belong—the ones who never question whether they deserve their legacy spots or special treatment. They possess every privilege imaginable but, in their teens, already feel trapped and sense that their lives are preordained. I get why it’s narratively convenient to tell the story from the perspective of the new kid but supporting characters like Daisy Buchanan and Mathilde de la Mole are the miserable rich girls who captured my attention, and that’s just the type of anti-heroine I’ve centered in To Have and Have More.
This list consists of campus novels that diverge from the standard arc and provide more in the way of professors and politics of academia while remaining in that most beloved of settings: the private school campus.
Japanese by Spring by Ishmael Reed
It so happened that I was reading Reed’s 1993 university culture wars satire while Claudine Gay and Liz Magill were inescapable headlines. Japanese by Spring is so entertaining that it (slightly) lessened the disheartening truth that all of Reed’s critiques still stand—little progress has been made in taking DEI out bureaucrats and opportunists’ hands. Our world still puts POC professors like Reed’s Prof. Benjamin “Chappie” Puttbutt in the impossible position of either being considered 1) a Social Justice Warrior (pejorative) by the university administration or 2) a race traitor by his community. Reed gets infinite mileage out of petty politics and small-minded backstabbing.
Abigail by Magda Szabó, translated by Len Rix
Campus novels sometimes catch flack for not having “stakes”—this book cannot be accused of such. Set in Hungary against the backdrop of WWII, Szabó demonstrates how war touches every corner of life and even if you ensconce your daughter at a boarding school for safekeeping, there are limits to a father’s protection in wartime. The wonder of this book is how Szabó conveys the small moments of adolescence—pettiness, inside jokes, crushes—do not cease to exist even under the most dire circumstances. There is still joy and beauty and mischief when the world is falling apart around you.
Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly
This is my most unconventional pick because I’m recommending one specific third of this criticism-cum-memoir. Part 3, “A Georgian Boyhood,” is Connolly’s autobiography of his time at Eton, where he was friends with George Orwell. The title of this book is drawn from the idea that many of the “most promising” students are the ones who end up as disappointments: “Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.” Thus, to be an “enemy of promise” is to gird yourself against a jinx of sorts. I find it presciently self-aware that Connolly completes his literary criticism (parts 1 and 2) with a description of his schooldays to provide context for how and why he thinks about books. His Eton education informed his perspective (and prejudices) on literature and it illuminates his critical writing to understand how he came to think the way he does.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Imagine your teacher is a fascist who puts up pictures of Mussolini in your sixth grade classroom—and she’s incredibly charismatic. The campus in question is the Marcia Blaine School for Girls and the ineffable Miss Brodie sticks with her students from age 10 through 17. This book is a hilarious examination of the teacher-student dynamic and how potentially dangerous the combination of impressionable kids and an agenda-having instructor can be. Since it’s Muriel Spark, she keeps it light and errs on the side of comedy but the sinister implications land. (When friends ask for a short book recommendation, this is the 150-page novel I point them to.)
Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy
Don’t read this if you need someone to “root for”. Almost every character is unlikeable, irredeemable, and/or selfish—and I only wish this book were longer. The fact that McCarthy draws on her experiences as a professor at Bard and Sarah Lawrence makes me deeply curious about how the book was received by her ex-colleagues (who are represented as the absolute last people you would ever want to work beside.) I love a well-drawn hypocrite and Henry Mulcahy (who casts himself as the victim of a witch hunt) is painfully believable in his intellectual posturing and campaign to get other faculty members on his side.
The Rector of Justin by Louis Auchincloss
When you look back on your schooldays, there is probably at least one authority figure who still feels larger than life. Auchincloss captures the fascinating phenomenon of an institution being carried on the back of one such person. Headmaster Prescott is beloved by (almost) all who pass through the prep school’s halls and the prospect of his retirement is a death knell for the school. The hero worship Prescott receives and the weight of his failures counterbalance each other to create a character who also manages to carry this entire book. The Rector of Justin is both a paean to wonderful schools and also a cautionary tale about believing in your own mythos.
Come and Get It by Kiley Reid
College campuses are ripe for discussions about class—where else do legacy nepo-babies and first-gen scholarship students cross paths constantly? It’s an extreme melting pot that forces awkward questions out into the open at every turn. Reid’s Such a Fun Age probed into class-race-power dynamics of a Black babysitter and white mom. And this follow-up similarly examines grey zones between an RA, a visiting professor/journalist, and a transfer student who fled her previous school. There’s nothing more entertaining than asking young adults what they think is “tacky” and “classy”—and that’s exactly how Come and Get It opens. When you grow up, you learn not to answer the tacky/classy question because it is only ever asked to cast you as a mouthpiece for a certain milieu.
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