Word: prescotts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Morris, was something of a political figure back in those days. He was the Senator's uncle, and one of Barry's earliest political influences. Morris was a devotee of Thomas Jefferson, helped establish the Territory's Democratic Party, served for 26 years as mayor of Prescott and was vice president of the 1910 constitutional convention that steered Arizona into the Union...
...Francis Prescott is about to retire after 55 years as rector of Justin Martyr school, and his life is narrated by people who have known him: students, teachers, family. For the leisurely first half of the book only his admirers comment on him, and they see him much as he sees himself: a man of rocklike integrity and boundless Christian charity. Says one ex-pupil: "His kindness was overwhelming, without ever being in the least sentimental; without even, perhaps, .being personal. He raised the great beaker of his hope to my lips like a communion cup and watched with grave...
Strange Obsession. But eventually Prescott's detractors have their say. On the surface the old man is all assurance and firm faith, but Auchincloss neatly reveals, bit by bit, how forced that faith is. Prescott is a ferocious disciplinarian and moralist in order to cover his own numerous anxieties. He is strangely obsessed, for instance, with homosexuality. He encourages vicious hazing to make the boys "tough." All play is aggressively organized, and Prescott will not let the boys wander off anywhere in pairs. "I did not think a hundred examples of David and Jonathan were worth one of sodomy...
...gradually becomes evident that Prescott will move mountains for boys who accept his authority, but anyone who questions it is in for trouble. One wayward student locks the great man in his office, forcing him to make an undignified exit down a ladder from the window. An outraged Prescott takes his revenge by making a moral issue of the prank and ultimately hounds the boy to suicide...
Shrill Idealism. Perhaps in rebellion against tyrannical Daddy, Prescott's cynical, slatternly daughter Cordelia seduces one of his prize ex-pupils, Charley Strong, and shacks up with him in Paris. Poor Charley, missing one lung from shrapnel in World War I, has not long to live, and Cordelia genuinely loves him. But Prescott is determined to save them both. He pops up in Paris "at his most ebullient, his most awful." He takes over Charley and ousts Cordelia. When Charley dies, it is in Prescott's, not Cordelia's arms, and it is clear that Prescott...