The Headmaster Ritual — Taylor Antrim

Journalist Taylor Antrim's debut is a clear-eyed examination of hidden worlds whose complexities and rules can only be understood from inside: the insular ecosystem of boarding school; the thorny dynamics of fathers and sons; and the self-deluding excesses of blind ideological commitment. Dyer Martin, a new history teacher at the prestigious Britton School, arrives in the fall ready to close the door on the failures of his past: a disastrous first job, a broken relationship, and acute uncertainty about his future. James, a lonely senior, just wants to make it through his last year unscathed, avoiding both the brutal hazing of dorm life and the stern and unforgiving eye of his father, the school's politically radical headmaster, Ed Wolfe. Dyer and James are inescapably drawn into Wolfe's hidden agenda for Britton, however, when the headmaster orders Dyer to set up and run a Model UN for students. As the United States moves steadily toward a conflict with an increasingly hostile North Korea--whose pursuit of nuclear technology is pushing the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon--Wolfe's political fervor begins to consume him, and he sets in motion a plan that will jeopardize his job, his school, and even the life of his own son.