CHARLES WEBB

At the end of Charles Webb's first novel, THE GRADUATE, Benjamin Braddock rescues his beloved Elaine from a marriage made not in heaven but in California. It is now eleven years and 3,000 miles later, and the couple live in Westchester County, a suburb of New York City, with their two young sons, who they are educating at home. Through no accident, a continent now stands between them and the boys' surviving grandparent, now known as Nan, but who in former days answered to Mrs. Robinson. As the story opens, the Braddock household is in turmoil as the Westchester School Board attempts to quash the unconventional educational methods the family is practising. Desperate situations call for desperate remedies ndash; even a cry for help to the mother-in-law from hell, who is only too happy to provide her loving services ndash; but at a price far higher than could be expected. Charles Webb has a knack for pinpointing the horrors and absurdities of domestic life, and HOME SCHOOL displays all the precision and wit that made THE GRADUATE such a long-lasting success.

'For twenty- one years I have been shuffling back and forth between classrooms and libraries. Now you tell me what the hell it's got me.' That's how Benjamin Braddock talked when he came down from university. Somehow it didn't seem to be what his father expected from a college education, and everyone was really appalled when Ben raped Mrs Robinson (that was her story anyway) and ran off with her daughter in the middle of her wedding to someone else... a brilliantly sordid tale of a young man's search for identity and a portrayal of the worst-behaved yet most sympathetic anti-hero of the day.

As far as Benjamin Braddock's parents are concerned, his future is sewn up. Now he has graduated from college, he will go to Yale or Harvard, get a good job and enjoy a life of money, cocktails and pool parties in the suburbs, just like them. For Benjamin, however, this isn't quite enough. When his parents' friend Mrs Robinson, a formidable older woman, strips naked in front of him and they begin an affair, it seems he might have found a way out. That is, until her daughter Elaine comes into the picture, and things get far more complicated.