Books: “School Days” by Jonathan Galassi

Full disclosure: I went to a public high school, graduated from a public university, and outside of movies like “Dead Poets Society,” don’t know much about what happens in all-male private prep schools.

So I regarded Jonathan’s Galassi’s novel “School Days” with fascination—as if I were observing the behavior of a tribe from the remotest parts of Tanzania.

Granted, the young gents in “School Days” may be a bit more cosmopolitan than the nomadic Maasai, but when it comes to life they’re still babes in the woods. Sam, a former student and now an instructor at the posh Leverett School in Connecticut, is asked by his headmaster to investigate an allegation of sexual abuse that took place while Sam was still 16.

The novel then flashes back to 1964, when it seems nearly every student in this all-male prep school—jocks, nerds, and brainiacs—had a homoerotic crush on a fellow student. Since this was almost 60 years ago, no one actually did anything physical. They simply pined—and talked about it. Then talked about it some more. Sam himself idealized Eddie, a handsome athletic bi guy, all through high school, college and long into adulthood but after a bit of awkward fumbling, both went on to marry women.

Flash forward to the present, when we are asked to consider: did a popular teacher actually put the move on the student who is about to sue the school for sexual harassment? Can Sam meet with the aggrieved student and head off the law suit? Is Sam ready to come out of the closet after so many years of marriage? Do we really care?

The language in “School Days” is so precious, it makes “Brideshead Revisited” read like Jean Genet. As one is wont to say, not our kind, dear.