Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff

by William Inge

In Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff, high-school Latin teacher Evelyn Wyckoff loses her job because she has an affair with the school's black janitor. The novel's themes include spinsterhood, racism, sexual tension and public humiliation during the late 1950s.

Genres: Fiction, Plays, Novels

179 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1970

About the author

Dramas of American playwright William Motter Inge explored the expectations and fears of small-town Midwesterners; his play Picnic (1953) won a Pulitzer Prize.

Works of this novelist typically feature solitary protagonists, encumbered with strained sexual relations. In the early 1950s, Broadway produced a memorable string. Inge rooted his portraits of life and settings in the heartland.

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished reading GOOD LUCK, MISS WYCKOFF by Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist William Inge. Published in 1970. Inge is a personal favorite writer of mine. Ever since I saw the film version of his play PICNIC I've been a fan. I get him. I love the midwestern stories, of loneliness and longing he knows so well and writes of so well. This novel, his first, I read in just two days. I couldn't put it down. It's about a white spinster (37, author's description on spinster, not mine) school teacher named Evelyn Wyckoff, and her awakening when she starts a brutal sexual affair with a black student. The novel is told in mostly flashback telling of how Miss Wyckoff got to being run out of town. Her being a middle-aged virgin, her depression, her taking pills and tranquilizers to cope with pre-menopause. I found it all very fascinating and the ending shocked me. It had everything you get in an Inge play and more. What a great debut novel. Not sure I'd recommend it to everyone. It deals with some pretty racial stuff and there are some pretty graphic scenes. But I loved it. It was definitely a rare page-turner for me. I know of a film of the same name that was released in 1979 that was trashed because it was filmed as more of a perverse porno. It was most famous for being the last film Carolyn Jones' (Morticia from the tv show THE ADDAMS FAMILY) last film. Much of the book is from the point of view of Miss Wyckoff's thoughts, so I could understand filming it would be difficult. But that's the beauty of the novel, that with it you can get into the mind of characters, wherein film, you can't as successful. I love Inge and the way he writes characters and his prose is so how you would think that makes it flow so well. Anyway, I'm glad I read it. I know he wrote one more novel before committing suicide that I'll definitely be reading. From the same man who penned COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA and BUS STOP and THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS and NATURAL AFFECTION and SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS (which he won the Academy Award for best screenplay) GOOD LUCK, MISS WYCKOFF is pure Inge, and I loved it.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was not at all what I was expecting! I picked it up not even really knowing what it was about and I am not going to ruin it for anyone else. Its an awesome book and I definitely recommend it. Not for the faint of heart.

[Tina Tamman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a reread. I found the book on my shelf, remembered that I'd liked it but couldn't remember the plot, so had to read it again. And what a thought-provoking novel it is! My edition has only 105 pages but they are dense. There is this utter desperation and sexual repression written all over it, and yet it is surprising to read the novel now when there is so much racial tension in the States. The book is of course dated, and yet it isn't.
Read it for yourself; I bet it will raise questions and alter your perception of things, however slightly.

[Patrick Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miss Wyckoff has a lot of people wishing her good luck. Unfortunately it is 1950s America and she is being driven out of town for having a relationship with a black man. Miss Wyckoff is frightened, humiliated and alone. The book recounts her depression in coming to terms with an aging body and the fear of winding up alone. A depressing tale for sure, but a thought provoking read.

[Jake Akawayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shocking!