Home School

In Charles Webb's superb new book "Home School," a clever and thoroughly entertaining sequel to his classic novel "The Graduate," a lot has happened since Benjamin Braddock rescued the fair Elaine Robinson from the prospect of a loveless marriage and eloped with her to parts unknown 40+ years ago. And yet Webb's new story of the happy couple is as fresh and satirical as ever. Set in 1974, in Westchester County, New York, where Ben and Elaine moved into her late father's house to elude the depraved Mrs. Robinson, "Home School" opens with a simple plot device that shows the main characters still struggling to maintain their idealism and integrity in a world of suburban conformity. Their first challenge is how to beat the local school authorities who are insisting that Ben and Elaine abandon their then-experimental approach to teaching their children, Jason and Matt, at home. Faced with an implacable deadline to return the boys to standardized classes, Ben resorts to desperate measures and makes a late-night phone call to his nemesis, Mrs. Robinson, so that he can enlist her help in a plan to blackmail the school principal with a sex scandal. For her part, Mrs. Robinson - now calling herself "Nan" and long since denied contact with her grandsons - agrees. But from the beginning it's clear that she is scheming to use this as an opportunity to pursue her own mischievous goals by getting her own guest room where she can insinuate herself back into the Braddocks' lives. To complicate matters further, Ben and Elaine are also subjected to a visit by some very eccentric friends who share their interest in home-schooling, although with decidedly different results for their messed-up offspring. In fact, Garth and Goya prove to be a couple of "professional hippy" slackers who are as annoying as they are smug. This creates even more household tension as Goya has an awkward habit of continuing to breast-feed her nine-year-old daughter, Nefertiti, and older son Aaron, to the evident discomfort of their hosts. Much to Elaine's dismay, however, Ben apparently feels that Garth and Goya are fellow free-thinkers on the subject of enlightened education, and he is initially reluctant to ask them to leave. The rest of this slight but charming tale revolves around the drama inherent in restoring family harmony, standing up for one's beliefs, and trying to find some balance between the two. If the plot sounds superficial, it isn't, and the author's ear for dialogue has rarely been better. Webb does a particularly nice job of giving Elaine some of the best lines in the book, and showing how Ben's rather nefarious methods of making his case return to haunt him in the end. Throughout the story, there are fascinating narrative threads that explore everything from the modern obsession with consumerism and the importance of valuing authenticity over phoniness to the need for people to remain true to their own principles, regardless of the cost. And yet the writing is so bri

Mr. Webb continues the flow of a modern American classic with Benjamin and Elaine married and now living in New York. Mrs. Robinson (now referred to as Nan) is still back on the West Coast and has very limited rights to visit Benjamin and Elaine's children. When the local school board tries to put the kabosh on Benjamin and Elaine's home schooling program, Benjamin reluctantly calls Nan to help them out. As things go along Nan gets herself back into Ben and Elaine's house and into a lot of the same trouble that we saw in the original story. The dialogue is great. Ben still talks the same way (sometimes he sounds like the robot from the original who asked things like would you like wire or wood). Great work Mr. Webb!

Forty-odd years ago - some would say very odd - Charles Webb published his first novel. A study in modern life called "The Graduate." It was a best seller, and it spawned a movie that literally changed the American cultural landscape. The story of Mrs. Robinson and Benjamin and his love for her daughter Elaine was comic and explosive. Underneath it all was a keen and poignant recognition of genuine American angst. If you are a reader/movie-goer who wonders what happened to Benjamin and Elaine after he invaded her wedding and ran off with her, your questions are now answered. "Home School" is set 11 years later, and Benjamin and Elaine... Well, they are fully-entrenched suburban dwellers, a hard-working married couple with two children. They seem the stereotypical American couple of the 1970s. But this is, in some senses, "The Graduate" redux. The couple is home-schooling their children, and the local school board doesn't like it. The Braddock's need help. So they send out the call to California and grandma Nan comes cross country to New York's Westchester County to help out. Nan is, of course, "Mrs. Robinson. And so it begins. "Home School" moves fast, supplies both wit and insight, and reads a lot like a screenplay. Especially the dialogue. Remember the line in "The Graduate" which became central to the entirety of anti-establishment mantras? It was: "Plastics." Early on in "Home School," when asked why she took her children out of school is educate them at home, Elaine replies: "We took them out to they wouldn't grow up to be bankers." Right there, you know where you're going in this novel. It's a fast trip, one with admirable and sometimes breathtaking dialogue. Webb has an ear for reality and a mind full of things he wants to say. His books after "The Graduate" weren't as successful as that first avalanche of surprise. "Home School" is surprisingly fresh and effective, another avalanche, very much like the first. You just have to settle back and enjoy the ride.

In Hastings, New York Ben and Elaine Braddock home teach their two sons only to have the Westchester County School Board and local principal Ralph Claymore inform them that Matt and Jason must return to school. Claymore insists he has received anonymous complaints from parents, but refuses to name anyone. They consider relocating to Vermont where their friends Garth and Goya Lewis home school their two kids, but besides being too rustic for them, Elaine has a problem with nine years old Aaron still being nursed by his mom. A family discussion resolves nothing so a desperate Ben calls California for help. He tells Elaine he called her mom Nan who will be staying at the nearby Ardsley Motel to help them. Ben also buys tape recorders. The four Braddocks attend the annual high schools faculty baseball game when Nan arrives. She talks with Claymore and they leave together. Not long afterward Nan gives a tape to Ben. He takes it to married Ralph who realizes his sexual tryst with Nan has been recorded. The kids remain home schooled. Now the problem is to send Nan to the other coast so Ben asks the Lewis family to stay with them. However the problems evolve into sending Nan back to California and the Lewis quartet to Vermont or have Elaine, Matt and Jason move elsewhere. This tale tells what happened to Ben and Elaine a decade after he rescued her from a bad marriage (see The Graduate). The support cast including their sons, her over the top mom, and their other eccentric guests bring out the best and worst in Ben and Elaine while each of Ben's solutions to problems leads to bigger problems. The amusing story line is fun but thin. Still fans of the movie and book The Graduate will enjoy HOME SCHOOL as the lead couple's personalities especially idealistic Ben remains true. Harriet Klausner

I've always been irritated by the fact that all anyone ever remembers about The Graduate is the seduction of the protagonist by the archetypal Older Woman Mrs Robinson. While of course this is a pivotal aspect of the story, the book and film have so much more to say about alienation and obsession. I reread the novel recently and was particularly taken by its anti-consumerist stance, especially given it was published in 1963, before the ideas it presented became truly trendy. These themes are picked up again in Home School, which stands alone as a well-conceived continuation of the lives of the characters first introduced in The Graduate 44 years ago. The book is set 11 years after the tumultuous events of that novel. Ben and Elaine are still together and now have two young boys whom they are teaching at home so that they don't have to go through the educational system that Ben is still chafing against. Home School is a fine example of Webb's droll style and ability to record the minutia of life we cling to in stressful times; the arguments while making coffee or brushing teeth, the need to maintain the quotidian while our lives threaten to fall apart. The story takes some surprising turns and I had a strong sense that these characters mean as much to Webb now as to the young man who wrote the first novel so many years ago. Certainly there is a youthful vigour in the writing, and the book is at times laugh out loud funny. This is not some pointless cash-in sequel, but a fine and mature novel that complements its predecessor but can be read without any knowledge of what went before. And yes, Ben and the marvellously monstrous Mrs Robinson have a rather interesting trip down memory lane that brings the novel to a deeply satisfying conclusion.