Home School
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, whom 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 - even a cry for help to the mother-in-law from hell. She is only too happy to provide her loving services - 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..
Charles Webb was born in California. His first novel, The Graduate, was made into the acclaimed film. Six years ago he moved to the UK to write a novel based on a English character, which was published as New Cardiff. He and his wife Fred remained in Great Britain.
Currently he is working on a novel entitled Porn Flakes, about a poet who inherits an adult book shop.