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The Year of the Gadfly

A Novel

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

A darkly witty mystery set at a New England prep school: “Part Dead Poets Society. Part Heathers. Entirely addictive” (Glamour).
 
“Do you know what it took for Socrates’ enemies to make him stop pursuing the truth?”
“Hemlock.”
 
The fiercely competitive Mariana Academy was founded with a serious honor code; its reputation has been unsullied for decades. But now, a long-dormant secret society called Prisom’s Party seems to have reemerged, threatening the school’s placid halls with vigilante justice, exposing students and teachers alike for even the most minor infraction.
 
Iris Dupont, a budding journalist whose only confidant is the chain-smoking specter of Edward R. Murrow, feels sure she can break into the ranks of the Devil’s Advocate, the Party’s underground newspaper, and there uncover the source of its blackmail schemes and vilifying rumors. Some involve the school’s new science teacher, who also seems to be investigating the Party. Others point to an albino student who left school abruptly ten years before, never to return. And everything connects to a rare book called Marvelous Species. But the truth comes with its own dangers, and Iris is torn between her allegiances, her reporter’s instinct, and her own troubled past, in this “darkly comic romp” filled with double-crosses and deeply buried secrets (The Washington Post).
 

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 20, 2012
      High school is bad enough (mean girls, academic pressure, figuring out where you belong), but things are extra awful at Mariana Academy, a scandal-plagued institution with an elaborate code intended to prevent cliques—and student vigilantes to enforce it. The school’s magnetic pull draws two former students back to town with Mariana-related agendas. Meanwhile, new girl Iris Dupont is there for a fresh start after her best friend’s suicide. The narrative alternates between Iris, who’s trying to crack Mariana’s mysteries; her teacher Mr. Kaplan, who hopes to reconnect with old love Hazel, once the “Queen of the Geeks”; and albino Lily, the headmaster’s daughter. Lily’s story is confined to 1999, while everyone else narrates from the present, but the mysteries connect across time. If this sounds complicated, it is: Miller (Inheriting the Holy Land, a memoir) spends so much time knitting past and present and stirring up gothic jealousies and elaborate revenge plots that it’s hard to stay connected to Iris; Jonah; Jonah’s twin brother, Justin; Lily (who’s dating Justin); or Hazel. High school’s hell, sure, but Mariana Academy has too many hellish setups for us to care about who’s doing what to whom. Agent: Mollie Glick, Foundry Literary + Media.

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Languages

  • English

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