The Headmaster's Wife begins on an early winter morning, with a man walking into New York City's Central Park. He takes off his hat, then his clothes and shoes, and continues his walk. He is taken to a police station and asked what happened. He says he must begin at the beginning, which he does.
Arthur Winthrop is the headmaster of a Vermont prep school, like his grandfather and father before him. His son, Ethan, chose not to follow the family plan and instead joined the army right out of high school. Arthur's wife, Elizabeth, is drifting away from him, interested only in tennis and sitting in Ethan's room, worrying.
Arthur tells the police about his obsession with a student, Betsy, their sexual encounters and her leaving him for Russell Hurley, a handsome basketball player her own age. Arthur plants alcohol under Russell's dorm bed, arranges a room search and has him expelled.
At this point, the policeman interviewing Arthur brings in a man he introduces as an attorney. Arthur hasn't asked for one, and the man's arrival turns everything upside down. The reader knows from Thomas Christopher Greene's clever foreshadowing that something monumental has happened--but only midway through do we learn what it is. The story turns, and it is as if a new book is being written, but such is not the case.
Slowly, our questions are answered and the truth comes out in this examination of grief, love, marriage, madness and hope. Before you pick up this book, clear the decks--because you will read it in one sitting. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.