In this, the first of four books about Gordon Bancroft, the American artist and misfit is depicted during his fall term at Phillips Academy Andover at the beginning of the sixties. When Gordon finally frees himself from the need to impress the people who have been pressuring him to succeed and seeks to win the affection of Janet McBride, a slightly older "townie" with European experience, his grades improve along with his attitude. Still, emotional release is not enough to keep the pressures he is under from mounting."The character of Gordon Bancroft is drawn with such care and understanding that one must know he is genuine, like Quentin in Absalom! Absalom! or Holden in Catcher in the Rye. Unlike them, Gordon has little innocence... but he does have a brutal honesty in his self-portraiture that those of us who have sought to preserve some illusions about our own childhoods may find threatening...If Gordon is tortured by self-loathing and fear, it is because he sees himself as different from the elite by whom he is surrounded... If there is something perverse in his character, there is something courageous and hopeful in it as well. Putnam stomps a jackboot on the toes of complacency with this novel, and for the gesture and its efficacy he will doubtless be recognized." Andrew B. Preslar in the Review of Texas Books