‘The Crazy School’ by Cornelia Read

Published by  Grand Central Publishing. January 2008

ISBN: 978-0-446-58259-9

After being introduced to Madeline Dare in Cornelia Read’s first novel, “A Field of Darkness,” readers are again treated to an encounter with this original protagonist.  Now 26 years old, she has left upstate New York for the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts and, when her husband’s job offer falls through, begins teaching at the Santangelo Academy, a boarding school for disturbed teenagers.  The school motto is “Free to Be,” and it has a rather unusual way of doing things:  “Everyone at the school had to do Santangelo-approved therapy—not just the kids but the teachers, the administrators, and the parents of every student.  We did ours on campus.  Santangelo had a traveling crew of shrinks who met with parents around the country.  If they missed a session, they weren’t allowed contact with their kid by phone or mail for a month.  I couldn’t believe that was legal, but they were desperate enough to suck it up without complaint.”

 Touted as a “healing community,” it begins to look more like “The Snake Pit,” and Madeline suspects that the Academy’s director is “just the latest charlatan to wrap himself in their snake-oily mantle of overpriced navel-gazing hooey.”  When two students die in what appears to be a double suicide, Madeline, who had sincerely cared about these kids, both especially vulnerable, is determined to find out the truth.  At this point the novel, which had been proceeding at an unhurried pace, rapidly kicks into high gear

This is another compelling novel by this author, the plot alternately funny and suspenseful, and the world she has created is a bit like passing the scene of an accident but finding onself unable to look away.  [I might add that I loved her use of a line from an old and classic Danny Kaye movie.]  The book is a very enjoyable read, and is recommended.

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