The Headmaster Ritual

The Headmaster Ritual falls squarely into my favorite sub-genre of literature: academic dysfunction. This category includes favorites like The Secret History, Straight Man, Wonder Boys, and Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Many in this genre focus if not exclusively then emphatically on one perspective of surviving in an academic setting: either the students' view or the faculty's. The Headmaster Ritual, in contrast, offers up three main characters, the school's headmaster, a newbie teacher, and an unpopular senior who happens to be the headmaster's son. Antrim gives equal playing time to both Dyer (the teacher) and James (the student) leaving the headmaster out in the cold somewhat. He's little more than a caricature, and the reader is never given a satisfying understanding of his motivations. He's the catalyst for almost everything that happens in the book, and, for that reason, a key player. But in terms of the book's emotional heft, it's Dyer and James who carry the day.

Predictably, both Dyer and James are outsiders. These stories are never told from the perspective of the prom queen or quarterback; what fun would that be? I know very few people who confess to being popular in high school, and I think most of us enjoy seeing the popular stereotypes skewered by our unpopular fictional counterparts.

Unlike many of these academic-set books, which count on departmental and social dysfunction to continue unabated for all time, thus making them somewhat timeless, The Headmaster Ritual uses fictional but timely current events to place the story. There is a real-world political aspect present providing the high stakes for Dyer's and James's individual storyline climaxes.

The Headmaster Ritual doesn't crack my top five list for this type of book, but it was a fun and fast read.