A Private Place

by Amanda Craig

Knotshead is a school catering for the children of the rich, famous, liberal - and deluded. With its progressive curriculum, complacent staff and beautiful grounds, it looks like Paradise. But the clever, the odd and the bookish are relentlessly persecuted as pupils make their own rules in a bubble of privilege and prejudice. When Alice, the Headmaster?s intellectual step-daughter, and the much-expelled American millionaire Winthrop T Sheen join forces against the school bully, Grub Viner, a gifted pianist and school ?joker?, has to choose between love and loyalty, and black comedy escalates to murder. Savagely funny, compelling and a cult classic, A Private Place has struck a chord with generations. `A viciously clever satire on progressive schools... Will cause distress in liberal circles? Independent `Bitingly funny and horribly accurate? Daily Telegraph `A genuinely gripping novel? Spectator `Craig writes with ruthless honesty and jet black wit? Cosmopolitan

Genres: Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Amanda Craig (born 1959) is a British novelist. Craig studied at Bedales School and Cambridge and works as a journalist. She is married with two children and lives in London.

Craig has so far published a cycle of six novels which deal with contemporary British society, often in a concise acerbic satirical manner. Her approach to writing fiction has been compared to that of Anthony Trollope and Charles Dickens.[1] Her novel A Vicious Circle was originally contracted to be published by Hamish Hamilton, but was cancelled when its proof copy received a libel threat from David Sexton, a literary critic and former boyfriend of Craig's at Cambridge, fifteen years previously.[2] The novel was promptly bought by Fourth Estate and published three months later. Although each novel can be read separately, they are linked to each other by common characters and themes, thus constituting a novel sequence. Usually, Craig takes a minor character and makes him or her the protagonist of her next work.

Craig is particularly interested in children's fiction, and was one of the first critics to praise JK Rowling and Philip Pullman in The New Statesman. She is currently the children's critic for The Times.

Reviews

[Jayne Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in a 'progressive' boarding school staffed by oddballs and attended by the offspring of the rich and famous, this book put me in mind of Hogwarts and I was constantly expecting someone to whip out a wand (though it's worth pointing out this pre-dates the Harry Potter series by some years). Characters were well drawn, and the depiction of bullying was compelling and often shocking - the author writing from personal experience, as the strikingly heartfelt afterword makes clear. What I liked most of all, though, was the way the author depicted the changing seasons. ("November days were strung together by threads of rain like numbers on a calendar"). You could feel the mud, the snow, the sun and the grass. Ordinarily those might be the more tedious parts of a novel but in this one they were a constant joy.

[edited to add: Surprised to see an error on the back cover blurb, which is reproduced at the top of this page too ^^. Grub is not the school bully. I'm surprised something like that can make it through the editing process!]

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trendy, West Country public school Knotshead is a place where the rich and the famous send their children to be educated. Struggling under the management of an ineffectual headmaster the establishment lurches between crises and scandals.

When Alice (swotty sister-in-law of the headmaster)and Winthrop (much expelled son of an American billionaire) form an unlikely alliance against the school bully (rock star's son Johnny Tore), the ultimate result is tragedy. But along the way there's plenty of dark humour and a rich cast of characters. Perhaps a few too many characters where the staff are concerned as it was sometimes hard to keep track.

At its heart this book is a scathing satire on progressive education - guaranteed to have Guardian readers spluttering indignantly into their fair trade coffee. Nonetheless it has a high entertainment value and keeps you turning the pages, vividly capturing the conflicting forces and random cruelties of school life.

The Kindle edition has a few too many errors for my liking which is disappointing in a book from a relatively big name author.

[Pam Keevil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amusing poke at so called 'progressive schools' of the later years of the twentieth century. Great characters and an interesting mingling of plot lines. The teen speak is a little too sophisticated at times and the final few chapters of disaster and resolution happen too quickly and are over very soon. I always enjoy the author's settings.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

At some point I wanted my kids to go to boarding school. I’m glad they didn’t. A case study in adolescent bullying with stunningly real characters and a firm grip on the way we live now (or, in the 90s in this case) that make Craig’s work so compelling.

[Eightlegs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this dark story set in a "progressive" boarding school. It describes the discordant relationships amongst the staff and their lack of attention to the welfare of their pupils whose behaviour escalates to disaster. I found the afterword by the author especially thought provoking.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really honest look at life in British boarding schools. That means it’s unyieldingly, cruel, perceptively, subtle, often times, misleading, and above all, very entertaining if you are indeed, a fan of these sorts of books. Is student centric, with a great variety of students, and sometimes their cruelty is almost unbelievable. And yet my wife tells me from her research – – and she knows all – – that it’s more true than not. Either way, it’s remarkably entertaining, but that does not mean consistently funny. And while the ending is vaguely hopeful, I suppose, you can’t help but worry about the state of education.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

As one character remarks, a progressive boarding school is a contradiction in terms. Hence I expected ‘A Private Place’ to revel in absurdity and be much funnier than it is. Perhaps Amanda Craig’s experience of being bullied at Bedales encouraged her to write a much darker novel instead.

[Sarah Harkness · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favourite, although I enjoy spotting characters who will reappear in the other books.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not badly written, but too sordid to be enjoyable. It's all about shallow snobbish bullies and the misfits they humiliate. Apparantly inspired by the author's real experiences, I'd rather escape reality with Malory Towers or Harry Potter.

[Bel Murphy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having enjoyed Hearts and Minds, this book was a great disappointment. Set in a 'progressive' boarding school in Devon, it portrayed a series of angst- ridden, one-dimensional characters. The relationship between the headmaster and his racy wife was completely implausible, as was the twist in the relationship between Alice and Poppy. Craig introduced too many characters about whom I learned (and cared) little. A Blyton-esque portrayal of a British boarding school, but completely devoid of jolly hockey sticks.