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Grievous
H. S. Cross returns to “a school as nuanced and secretive as J. K. Rowling’s Hogwarts” (The Rumpus) in Age of Grace, the sequel to her coming-of-age novel Wilberforce.
St. Stephen’s Academy, Yorkshire, 1931. A world unto itself, populated by boys reveling in life’s first big mistakes and men still learning how to live with the consequences of their own. They live a cloistered life, exotic to modern eyes, founded upon privilege, ruled by byzantine and often unspoken laws, haunted by injuries both casual and calculated. Yet within those austere corridors can be found windows of enchantment, unruly love, and a wild sort of freedom, all vanished, it seems, from our world.
Told from a variety of viewpoints—including that of unhappy Housemaster John Grieves—This Age of Grace takes us deep inside the crucible of St. Stephen’s while retaining a clear-eyed, contemporary sensibility, drawing out the urges and even mercies hidden beneath the school’s strict, unsparing surface. The Academy may live by its own codes, but as with the world around it—a world the characters must ultimately face—it already contains everything necessary to shape its people or tear them apart.
St. Stephen’s Academy, Yorkshire, 1931. A world unto itself, populated by boys reveling in life’s first big mistakes and men still learning how to live with the consequences of their own. They live a cloistered life, exotic to modern eyes, founded upon privilege, ruled by byzantine and often unspoken laws, haunted by injuries both casual and calculated. Yet within those austere corridors can be found windows of enchantment, unruly love, and a wild sort of freedom, all vanished, it seems, from our world.
Told from a variety of viewpoints—including that of unhappy Housemaster John Grieves—This Age of Grace takes us deep inside the crucible of St. Stephen’s while retaining a clear-eyed, contemporary sensibility, drawing out the urges and even mercies hidden beneath the school’s strict, unsparing surface. The Academy may live by its own codes, but as with the world around it—a world the characters must ultimately face—it already contains everything necessary to shape its people or tear them apart.
544 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 9, 2019
13 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
H.S. Cross
9 books12 followersH. S. Cross was born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. She was educated at Harvard College and has taught at Friends Seminary, among other schools. She lives in New York. Wilberforce is her debut novel, and she is currently working on a second book set at St. Stephen's Academy.
Source: Author's website.
Source: Author's website.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 5, 2019
A DRC was provided by Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Among the small but game group of readers that managed to make their way through H.C. Cross’s first novel, Wilberforce, there has been growing anticipation and dread at the upcoming appearance of the next book, Grievous. I managed to mentally bushwack my way through Cross’s first tome’s worth of plummy prose, myriad males of all ages, byzantine plotting and absolute immersion in the sealed, claustrophobic public school world of St. Stephen’s in 1920s Yorkshire. When I came to the end I was drained and not even sure if it had been worth it, only that I had been compelled to finish the book despite the struggle and my pesky awareness that there were no female characters other than dead mothers and Matron. Cross has a cult-like following who loved Wilberforce, book, boy, and bildungsroman, but I found myself looking forward to meeting up again with John Grieves, the depressed, charismatic schoolmaster who vanished from the scene two thirds through the first book. Now he’s back and as he was by far the most interesting character in Wilberforce (sorry, Morgan) this helped me to plunge back into St. Stephen’s cloistered world, set a few years later after Wilberforce has gone up to Oxford.
Mind you, reacquainting myself with the tropes of St. Stephen’s life - chamber pots, chapel, class, staggering amounts of school work, larks, Fag rebellions, hijinks, boiled sweets, canings, rebellions, more canings, jokes, feasts, verbal jousts, with only the occasional intrusion of outside life and parents, dead or otherwise. Most jarring were the every day, staggering acts of cruelty justified by tradition, revenge or repressed homosexual longings (and that’s just among the masters, to start with) that gave me a deja vu drag that I will always associate with Cross’s willingness to torture her readers while she enlightens/suffocates us. I happen to enjoy a good game of Spot the Allusion, or at least an effort to research the hell out of puzzles such as identifying cat’s head and Lenten grass (edible but yucky Easter treat), the intricacies of cricket and rugby (both of which my father played, neither which he ever bothered to explain) or the fun of translating random Latin phrases, but this may drive other readers barking mad. Immersion in another time requires some authentic historical detail but Cross takes it to a dementedly faithful level where I found myself looking up soaps, soup and long ago walking tours. Her writing may make one sort of reader long for an editor who can prune Cross's prose through the bog of character musings and chatte. That style may make another want to wallow in every meandering plotline and casual exchange between minor characters (Moss, Pearce, Halton, Trevor...who? Spaulding, Silk, Alex, Rees from Wilberforce, I hardly knew ye) There are internal monologues that go on for pages without the thinker ever really making it clear exactly what they are thinking about, but somehow being interesting despite the tendency to whine. Buck up boy!
Cross is cheerfully and legitimately beholden to such predecessors as Kipling (Stalky & Co are the students’ acknowledged real saints of St. Stephen’s), Donna Tartt and Evelyn Waugh. I do think the publisher is pushing it with publicity likening her style to everyone from Nabokov to Ivy Compton-Burnett (chortling in their graves) but most of all, to J.K. Rowling, presumably out of a desperate hope that a similar setting of boarding schools might bring similar sales. Will gullible Americans entranced by magical (of a sort) English settings accept the same lack of editing enjoyed by presumably both Rowling and Cross and buy the latter as they did the former? Doubtful, old chap. I don’t yet see a comparison to anything by Ford Madox Ford - the ambiguous, puzzling, tortured and fascinating heroes, the obsession with high Anglicanism, the utter lack of humour, the obsession with sin, suffering, penance, and redemption for every act from stealing a magazine to sexual misadventures to losing faith in boy, man and God. Plot - what plot? Check. Lots of sexual frustration and emotional constipation - check. Inability to actually talk to a woman - check. Latin, check. Terrible personal losses, check. The dangerous nostalgia boys feel for themselves and their rituals even before women, jobs, politics and sometimes war blast them apart - check. Hundreds of pages where nothing happens, then something catastrophic does - check.
We do have a new boy in Grievous, brilliant and tortured in Wilberforcian ways, though not as good at cricket. Gray, a budding writer in the Tolkien/Lewis vein, who considers himself “failed material for a character” but can’t help but be interesting, with “a mind full of capacious disorder.” There is also a welcome intrusion of female characters who are not pub girls or Matron, but they are either Gray’s mother, love interest, or love interest’s mother - or they’re related to Grieves, who whinges a bit more in this book but begins to sort it out with Gray by the book’s end. Servants, alas, are as absent as house elves at Hogwart’s, and this is not a group of English men who worry about the effects of colonialism or its expectations on generations of young middle-class men. Why should they, when they are grooming themselves to be Rulers of the World?
Should novels be punishing or headache inducing? It’s interesting that Cross’s work is set at a time of great experimentation in the English novel form when stream of consciousness and the expressive landscape of the soul became essential to modernism. Now there is something faintly quaint and downright brave about Cross’s demand that her reader accepts a full on deep dive in the minds of her characters, without apologizing for however sexist, imperialistic or self-satisfied they might be. Whether the reader cares to go there is another matter altogether. After Trevor falls on his head - twice - during a midnight adventure gone horribly wrong and is being dragged unwillingly to the infirmary, whereupon he will vanish forever from St. Stephen’s, he tells Gray, “I’m not going anywhere, Brains, until you admit it was the best night of your life.” Gray is dubious yet wants to believe - that is how Cross leaves the reader, too. Larks!
Among the small but game group of readers that managed to make their way through H.C. Cross’s first novel, Wilberforce, there has been growing anticipation and dread at the upcoming appearance of the next book, Grievous. I managed to mentally bushwack my way through Cross’s first tome’s worth of plummy prose, myriad males of all ages, byzantine plotting and absolute immersion in the sealed, claustrophobic public school world of St. Stephen’s in 1920s Yorkshire. When I came to the end I was drained and not even sure if it had been worth it, only that I had been compelled to finish the book despite the struggle and my pesky awareness that there were no female characters other than dead mothers and Matron. Cross has a cult-like following who loved Wilberforce, book, boy, and bildungsroman, but I found myself looking forward to meeting up again with John Grieves, the depressed, charismatic schoolmaster who vanished from the scene two thirds through the first book. Now he’s back and as he was by far the most interesting character in Wilberforce (sorry, Morgan) this helped me to plunge back into St. Stephen’s cloistered world, set a few years later after Wilberforce has gone up to Oxford.
Mind you, reacquainting myself with the tropes of St. Stephen’s life - chamber pots, chapel, class, staggering amounts of school work, larks, Fag rebellions, hijinks, boiled sweets, canings, rebellions, more canings, jokes, feasts, verbal jousts, with only the occasional intrusion of outside life and parents, dead or otherwise. Most jarring were the every day, staggering acts of cruelty justified by tradition, revenge or repressed homosexual longings (and that’s just among the masters, to start with) that gave me a deja vu drag that I will always associate with Cross’s willingness to torture her readers while she enlightens/suffocates us. I happen to enjoy a good game of Spot the Allusion, or at least an effort to research the hell out of puzzles such as identifying cat’s head and Lenten grass (edible but yucky Easter treat), the intricacies of cricket and rugby (both of which my father played, neither which he ever bothered to explain) or the fun of translating random Latin phrases, but this may drive other readers barking mad. Immersion in another time requires some authentic historical detail but Cross takes it to a dementedly faithful level where I found myself looking up soaps, soup and long ago walking tours. Her writing may make one sort of reader long for an editor who can prune Cross's prose through the bog of character musings and chatte. That style may make another want to wallow in every meandering plotline and casual exchange between minor characters (Moss, Pearce, Halton, Trevor...who? Spaulding, Silk, Alex, Rees from Wilberforce, I hardly knew ye) There are internal monologues that go on for pages without the thinker ever really making it clear exactly what they are thinking about, but somehow being interesting despite the tendency to whine. Buck up boy!
Cross is cheerfully and legitimately beholden to such predecessors as Kipling (Stalky & Co are the students’ acknowledged real saints of St. Stephen’s), Donna Tartt and Evelyn Waugh. I do think the publisher is pushing it with publicity likening her style to everyone from Nabokov to Ivy Compton-Burnett (chortling in their graves) but most of all, to J.K. Rowling, presumably out of a desperate hope that a similar setting of boarding schools might bring similar sales. Will gullible Americans entranced by magical (of a sort) English settings accept the same lack of editing enjoyed by presumably both Rowling and Cross and buy the latter as they did the former? Doubtful, old chap. I don’t yet see a comparison to anything by Ford Madox Ford - the ambiguous, puzzling, tortured and fascinating heroes, the obsession with high Anglicanism, the utter lack of humour, the obsession with sin, suffering, penance, and redemption for every act from stealing a magazine to sexual misadventures to losing faith in boy, man and God. Plot - what plot? Check. Lots of sexual frustration and emotional constipation - check. Inability to actually talk to a woman - check. Latin, check. Terrible personal losses, check. The dangerous nostalgia boys feel for themselves and their rituals even before women, jobs, politics and sometimes war blast them apart - check. Hundreds of pages where nothing happens, then something catastrophic does - check.
We do have a new boy in Grievous, brilliant and tortured in Wilberforcian ways, though not as good at cricket. Gray, a budding writer in the Tolkien/Lewis vein, who considers himself “failed material for a character” but can’t help but be interesting, with “a mind full of capacious disorder.” There is also a welcome intrusion of female characters who are not pub girls or Matron, but they are either Gray’s mother, love interest, or love interest’s mother - or they’re related to Grieves, who whinges a bit more in this book but begins to sort it out with Gray by the book’s end. Servants, alas, are as absent as house elves at Hogwart’s, and this is not a group of English men who worry about the effects of colonialism or its expectations on generations of young middle-class men. Why should they, when they are grooming themselves to be Rulers of the World?
Should novels be punishing or headache inducing? It’s interesting that Cross’s work is set at a time of great experimentation in the English novel form when stream of consciousness and the expressive landscape of the soul became essential to modernism. Now there is something faintly quaint and downright brave about Cross’s demand that her reader accepts a full on deep dive in the minds of her characters, without apologizing for however sexist, imperialistic or self-satisfied they might be. Whether the reader cares to go there is another matter altogether. After Trevor falls on his head - twice - during a midnight adventure gone horribly wrong and is being dragged unwillingly to the infirmary, whereupon he will vanish forever from St. Stephen’s, he tells Gray, “I’m not going anywhere, Brains, until you admit it was the best night of your life.” Gray is dubious yet wants to believe - that is how Cross leaves the reader, too. Larks!
November 11, 2021
Maybe not quite as successful as Wilberforce, but still successful. A lot of angst competing this time, not just one student's, so the angsts were sometimes hard to keep straight not just in the head but the heart. Not a book to pick up and put down over the course of a few weeks. Light wound with darkness throughout, and then total darkness, and then "a star appeared" (p. 524).
February 3, 2021
DNF @ 10%
I picked this up out of sheer curiosity about the cover, hoping it would be a dark academia style reminiscent of Dead Poet's Society. What it gave me was all of the pretentiousness of DA, and none of the charm. I don't mean pretentiousness by way of the actual content of the book, but in the style it is written. This thing requires its own glossary, and I spent at least the first 20 pages confused as to what the hell I was reading, as the characters switch between real names and nicknames in the same breath, and referenced places and people like I would already know them. Perhaps this is my fault for not reading Cross's other book, Wilberforce, which is set in the same location, first, however, it was my understanding that this was not a continuation of Wilberforce, and therefore, would be fine to read on its own. The author gives you little descriptive information about locations, leaving you to discern it by your own imagination, however, this also applies to the characters. I think this might be my main problem: I'm fifty-something pages in, and I don't know the two main character's motivations. I cannot empathise with them past the experiences they endure for seemingly no reason. I have a feeling I would absolutely adore this world and its characters, if only I could care about why they risk their wellbeing by sneaking out of school? Even if the author said that the reason why they break school rules by sneaking out was due to some misplaced sense of adventure, or "fuck authority", at least clarify that. The other main character, John Grieves, is an addled representation of a teacher that wants to ... what? I don't even know his motivations, either. I can't say that he wants to make a difference in his students' lives, because his actions barely reflect that - he does not seem to have an exuberant passion for teaching or anything beyond the memories of his own youth.
I sincerely believe this could have gone down as one of the most influential bildungsromans of its time, its a terrible shame that the style of writing forces you to interpret everything by yourself and gives you little reason to care about any of the characters - if you can remember which one is which.
Anyway, rant over.
I picked this up out of sheer curiosity about the cover, hoping it would be a dark academia style reminiscent of Dead Poet's Society. What it gave me was all of the pretentiousness of DA, and none of the charm. I don't mean pretentiousness by way of the actual content of the book, but in the style it is written. This thing requires its own glossary, and I spent at least the first 20 pages confused as to what the hell I was reading, as the characters switch between real names and nicknames in the same breath, and referenced places and people like I would already know them. Perhaps this is my fault for not reading Cross's other book, Wilberforce, which is set in the same location, first, however, it was my understanding that this was not a continuation of Wilberforce, and therefore, would be fine to read on its own. The author gives you little descriptive information about locations, leaving you to discern it by your own imagination, however, this also applies to the characters. I think this might be my main problem: I'm fifty-something pages in, and I don't know the two main character's motivations. I cannot empathise with them past the experiences they endure for seemingly no reason. I have a feeling I would absolutely adore this world and its characters, if only I could care about why they risk their wellbeing by sneaking out of school? Even if the author said that the reason why they break school rules by sneaking out was due to some misplaced sense of adventure, or "fuck authority", at least clarify that. The other main character, John Grieves, is an addled representation of a teacher that wants to ... what? I don't even know his motivations, either. I can't say that he wants to make a difference in his students' lives, because his actions barely reflect that - he does not seem to have an exuberant passion for teaching or anything beyond the memories of his own youth.
I sincerely believe this could have gone down as one of the most influential bildungsromans of its time, its a terrible shame that the style of writing forces you to interpret everything by yourself and gives you little reason to care about any of the characters - if you can remember which one is which.
Anyway, rant over.
June 3, 2019
My review of this book appears in Historical Novels Review Issue 88, May 2019:
This intense, unwieldy, and moving narrative about lives of quiet and not-so-quiet desperation is the sequel to the critically celebrated Wilberforce, set, like this one, in an English boy’s school in Yorkshire. St. Stephen’s Academy is a middling sort of school, antiquarian in its values but far less afflicted by class snobbishness than the usual Etonian setting. Five years have elapsed since the time of the first novel, but it’s not necessary to have read it to appreciate Cross’s fine eye for detail and empathy for the human condition. In fact, the structure and revelations of Grievous pretty much repeat those of its predecessor, so it might suffice to read one or the other.
Both books are fervent, overlong, and claustrophobic, but ultimately rewarding in their emotional insights. Like its predecessor, this novel is crammed with masses of colorful details of public-school cruelty, swotting, cricket, 1930s schoolboy slang, and homoerotic yearning, but it adds a web of family entanglements that expands the setting and allows the reader a glimpse of the confusion and ennui that afflicted the British professional classes between the World Wars.
The focus in this novel shifts from the students to the teachers, particularly the complicated relationship between John Grieves (whose school nickname provides the title) and his Headmaster, Jamie Sebastian, his childhood classmate/lover, now boss and married man. As the main characters travel around Europe in the holidays, Grieves’ precocious goddaughter, Cordelia, and his favorite student, sullen Gray Riding, begin a correspondence that threatens to reveal all their adult guardians’ closely-guarded secrets. Those secrets are not particularly unexpected, but their weight is felt by a large cast of characters who learn their most important lessons outside of school—about trust, memory, intimacy, and love.
This intense, unwieldy, and moving narrative about lives of quiet and not-so-quiet desperation is the sequel to the critically celebrated Wilberforce, set, like this one, in an English boy’s school in Yorkshire. St. Stephen’s Academy is a middling sort of school, antiquarian in its values but far less afflicted by class snobbishness than the usual Etonian setting. Five years have elapsed since the time of the first novel, but it’s not necessary to have read it to appreciate Cross’s fine eye for detail and empathy for the human condition. In fact, the structure and revelations of Grievous pretty much repeat those of its predecessor, so it might suffice to read one or the other.
Both books are fervent, overlong, and claustrophobic, but ultimately rewarding in their emotional insights. Like its predecessor, this novel is crammed with masses of colorful details of public-school cruelty, swotting, cricket, 1930s schoolboy slang, and homoerotic yearning, but it adds a web of family entanglements that expands the setting and allows the reader a glimpse of the confusion and ennui that afflicted the British professional classes between the World Wars.
The focus in this novel shifts from the students to the teachers, particularly the complicated relationship between John Grieves (whose school nickname provides the title) and his Headmaster, Jamie Sebastian, his childhood classmate/lover, now boss and married man. As the main characters travel around Europe in the holidays, Grieves’ precocious goddaughter, Cordelia, and his favorite student, sullen Gray Riding, begin a correspondence that threatens to reveal all their adult guardians’ closely-guarded secrets. Those secrets are not particularly unexpected, but their weight is felt by a large cast of characters who learn their most important lessons outside of school—about trust, memory, intimacy, and love.
September 1, 2019
3.75 stars
I can honestly say that 50% of the time (or more) I had no idea who was talking in this book or whose head I was in. It was like reading a book blindfolded or underwater, maybe both.
It was intriguing and compelling, though.
Set at St. Stephen's Academy in 1931, all the elements we have heard of concerning English boarding schools are here, including the terrible corporal punishment and bullying, the homosexual activity, some of it part of the bullying, but maybe I am wrong. So much of it is inferred and not stated directly.
Riding thinks he saw something behind closed doors about Wilberforce, but whatever it was, I do not know. John Grieves has some history with Jaimie Sebastian (Head) and that seems sexual in nature, though it's murky and ambiguous. Rider feels very betrayed when Grievous canes him in the early pages, but I'm not sure why. This may be the only book I have persevered through where I still didn't know much when I finished.
I didn’t read the first book Wilberforce, first name Morgan. It took me a while to assimilate all the background. The ending with the spanking? Am I a pervert if it seemed quite sexual?
An ambitious undertaking.
I can honestly say that 50% of the time (or more) I had no idea who was talking in this book or whose head I was in. It was like reading a book blindfolded or underwater, maybe both.
It was intriguing and compelling, though.
Set at St. Stephen's Academy in 1931, all the elements we have heard of concerning English boarding schools are here, including the terrible corporal punishment and bullying, the homosexual activity, some of it part of the bullying, but maybe I am wrong. So much of it is inferred and not stated directly.
Riding thinks he saw something behind closed doors about Wilberforce, but whatever it was, I do not know. John Grieves has some history with Jaimie Sebastian (Head) and that seems sexual in nature, though it's murky and ambiguous. Rider feels very betrayed when Grievous canes him in the early pages, but I'm not sure why. This may be the only book I have persevered through where I still didn't know much when I finished.
I didn’t read the first book Wilberforce, first name Morgan. It took me a while to assimilate all the background. The ending with the spanking? Am I a pervert if it seemed quite sexual?
An ambitious undertaking.
August 23, 2019
I almost stopped this book after the first thirty pages because I was having a hard time getting a grip on the characters. And then again when I realized it was centered around an English prep school where homosexual encounters were the norm. But I have read some good reviews of this book so I decided to persevere. The housemaster John Grieves is a kindhearted mess of a man who endeavors to connect with his students both in their schoolwork and in their personal problems. Several of the students in his house are dealing with family problems that affect their behavior, and Grieves, or "Grievous", tries to help while struggling with his own demons. I wasn't sure how this book would wrap up, since modern stories sometimes lack closure or devolve into nihilism, but this one seemed to indicate some hope and light.
September 7, 2019
Thankyou to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux and the author, H S Cross, for the opportunity to read a digital copy of Grievous in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I thought this book provided an amazing read.
The storyline was well thought and written. It was beautifully remarkable with great attention to detail. The characters are well defined and intriguing.
A great read.
I thought this book provided an amazing read.
The storyline was well thought and written. It was beautifully remarkable with great attention to detail. The characters are well defined and intriguing.
A great read.
April 28, 2020
This was like reading Wolf Hall - stream of consciousness. Couldn't tell who was talking, or why I should care. I REALLY didn't like this book. Set in an all boys boarding school in England in the early 30's, I couldn't figure out what the point was - ever. A jumble of characters and events that had no focus, plot or purpose. A complete waste of my time. Should have tossed it after 30 pages.
October 28, 2023
i've never read such an intense prolonged edging tense chemistry between two characters (john and jamie). i went insane
overall this was messy but fun. might (will) confuse new readers who are not used to her writing, so i can't promise that this will be for everyone but i'd say give it a chance.
especially because of john and jamie. 😭😩 they were fr the best thing about this book. their tension is just JDJIEUHIWHD im heartbroken
overall this was messy but fun. might (will) confuse new readers who are not used to her writing, so i can't promise that this will be for everyone but i'd say give it a chance.
especially because of john and jamie. 😭😩 they were fr the best thing about this book. their tension is just JDJIEUHIWHD im heartbroken
August 3, 2019
Not at all what I expected. Enjoyable.
September 3, 2019
I probably should give this another try later. I think I picked it up too close to finishing Wilberforce and it was just too much the same. I only got to p. 88 before returning it to the library.
September 27, 2019
Tried and failed, a VERY rare happening for me. Perhaps a first. I made it 2/3 of the way through and then I realized I just didn't care what happened to the characters.
February 11, 2020
I wanted to like it more. Some really beautiful writing in this coming of age story, but the Joyce-ian stream of conscience lost me.
August 30, 2023
Not even gonna finish this book, I don't like it, its too pretentious and not at all like Dead Poets Society, I'd rather read Secret History by Donna Tartt.
June 15, 2025
bro
this took way too long
istfg
this took way too long
istfg
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews