Once Again Assembled Here

by Sean O'Brien

Stephen Maxwell has just retired from a lifetime spent teaching history at his alma mater. As he writes the official history of Blake's, a minor public school steeped in military tradition, he also reveals how, forty years ago, a secret conflict dating from the Second World War re-enacted itself among staff and pupils, when fascism once more made its presence felt in the school and the city, with violent and nightmarish results.

Genres: Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 14, 2016

About the author

Sean O'Brien is a British poet, critic and playwright. Prizes he has won include the Eric Gregory Award (1979), the Somerset Maugham Award (1984), the Cholmondeley Award (1988), the Forward Poetry Prize (1995, 2001 and 2007) and the T. S. Eliot Prize (2007). He is one of only four poets (the others being Ted Hughes, John Burnside and Jason Allen-Paisant) to have won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for the same collection of poems (The Drowned Book).
Born in London, England, O'Brien grew up in Hull, and was educated at Hymers College and Selwyn College, Cambridge. He has lived since 1990 in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he teaches at the university. He was the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor at St. Anne's College, Oxford, for 2016–17.

Reviews

[Kerry Algar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in an isolated Northern seaport (probably Hull) ,a teacher at a private school is tasked to write a post-war history of the school he was educated and was later a teacher at for most of his career. It is a closed, militaristic establishment but it has secrets, cover ups and murder in its past, with its elite tentacles spreading into wider society. These won’t make the official history but Stephen Maxwell takes the story back to the turbulent late 60s as we see fascism rising again in parts of the political class, with a fascist party contesting a local by-election,affecting the students and staff at the school and bringing to the surface unresolved, festering issues going back to the war. A teacher is murdered and Maxwell becomes plunged into old wartime enmities and cover ups. The school holds a mock election which adds to the conflict , with pupils being attracted to the far right. Maxwell seems a reluctant figure to engage with such issues and the reader never really has much insight into his deeper thoughts on the politics of the story but he is a likeable, if flawed protagonist and his actions see him standing up for what is right. As the story develops it draws the reader in and gathers pace towards its conclusion. The school seems to be a reflection of the wider world but in the end there is a certain nonchalance about the wider issues around elitism, fascism and the rarefied atmosphere of the private school that perhaps could have been developed further by the author considering the momentous period of the late sixties it is set in.

[Aaron Ambrose · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took about 100 pages to work up some traction, but once it did, I read fast and furiously. This book has a really interesting dynamic arc - it starts very prim and proper, sort of agonizingly so, and it ramps up by degrees to the point where heads burn, throats are slit, and bodies are tied to buckets of cement and kicked into the sea. Not my normal cup of tea, but O'Brien's language and characterizations are remarkably witty and incisive, and a sly, inky humor buoys all the goings-on from start to finish. The closing line of the penultimate chapter made me bark with laughter - the most understated coda I think I've ever seen. A surprising little firecracker of a novel.

[Sappho Charney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want so much to like this novel more than I do. Set isn a British boys' school in 1968, it has all the elements I love: a murder, a school story, secrets, lots of history -- but the narrator never comes alive and the events could take place at just about any point in time, so vague is the atmosphere. The protagonist is particularly frustrating, refusing to reveal enough of himself for us to have the requisite empathy or even understanding. And though the actions should be exciting -- this is a murder mystery, among other things -- they just don't come alive.

[Renald Micallef · Rating 1 out of 5]

I do not know if it was just me, but no matter how hard I tried to remember the characters and their names, I failed. The only exception was Mr. Maxwell's. I am of the opinion that a lot of names are mentioned but not enough character building was present. In the end, I was glad to finish this book, sorry to say I did not like it. Wish any other reader a different journey than mine!

[Julian King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable form, containing clever novel depicting parallel boarding school/real life crises.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story’s too thin. Tobias Wolf’s Old School was better.

[Shelley Day Sclater · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a novel of intrigue, set in the 60s in a boys' public school in England. The boys are holding a mock-election in parallel with an actual by-election. The novel's written in memoir format, the protagonist-writer, Maxwell, is a former pupil and now a teacher who's resumed his position at the school after some absence and, we understand, a major fall from grace. Maxwell is a liminal character, always a bit of an outsider, doesn't quite fit in at the school or anywhere else, he's the kind of guy who hovers on the periphery, never quite grabbing anything by the throat - at the start of the book he's more interested in his own literary ramblings than anything else - but then he's pulled headlong into the intrigue, which turns out to be political intrigue, and then turns into political fisticuffs. At the heart of the book is a kind of 'confession' which Maxwell has inherited from a former colleague whose death is yet to be explained ... More than one person wants that document ... On the face of it, this is a novel about an unfortunate episode in the history of the life of a school when fascism reared its ugly face and some nasty things happened as a result. But it's much more than that. It's also a very interesting commentary on how institutions work, how when they're under threat - real or imagined, from inside or outside - how they can close in on themselves, how they close the world out, become self-defining and self-perpetuating systems that are increasingly impenetrable ... dangerous in itself, but much more so when the institution in question becomes a breeding ground for fascism. Lest we forget. This book takes a wee while to gather pace, but once it does, it's a great read. Highly recommended.

[Latkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really engrossing novel of murder and intrigue at a boys' private school during the 1960s. The narrator, Stephen Maxwell, was a pupil and has been a teacher at the school, Blakes, for decades, and looks back from 2010 to 1968 when he was involved in a series of terrible events. Back then, having disgraced himself at university, he returns to teach at Blakes, appointed by his old master Carson. When Carson is found dead one day, Maxwell finds that he's in possession of a document Carson wrote to him which implicates various other people in a cover-up during WWII.

This book expertly shows the way the far-right can find a foothold in the minds of the young, as various member of the BPP (a fascist political party) rise up and recruit pupils at the school to their cause. What I really liked about this novel was the flawed character of Maxwell. Unable to stop himself having an affair, and cowardly at times in his dealings with the BPP, he is far from heroic. And yet you suspect, as a reader, that you'd be just as flawed as him if you were in his situation. Written in poetic prose, this is a superior work which falls somewhere between a thriller and a literary novel.