THE RECTOR OF JUSTIN

by Louis Auchincloss ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

The Rector is the Reverend Francis Prescott, D.D., the founder-headmaster of Justin Martyr, a venerable, Episcopal New England secondary school of high caste and character. This then is a prismatic portrait of Dr. Prescott, who has now reached the end of some eighty forceful years, as seen through the sometimes coincident, sometimes contradictory interpretations of his family and associates. Brian Aspinwall, a shy epicene young protege of Prescott's assembles the evidence; the memoir of a decadent dilettante, once Prescott's school friend and satellite; the verbal confidences of his third daughter-- another Cordelia, whose love affair he had demolished; the testimony of one of his first students who became one of the school's trustees, and of that man's son whom he had expelled in a particularly vindictive episode; etc. etc. Leviathan? legend? charlatan? man of God or God among men? Prescott was many things to many people and his story is told with a discretion which is more appropriate than animated. Still, this is Auchincloss' first novel in some years which has gone beyond and below the superficial sheen of New York and Newport to provide a story of more substance, one in which character is shaped and shaded within its very definite social, intellectual and provincial environment. Its selection by the Book-of-the-Month club should extend a sphere of influence outside the ivy-and-moss covered purlieu of New England academia.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 0618224890

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1964

Categories: FICTION