The Best (or Worst?) Days of Your Life: 5 School Novels

School. The best days of your life, the worst days of your life, or the just-fine days of your life? Whichever it is, most people have potent memories and numerous anecdotes about their time in education, and schools are—unsurprisingly—fertile ground for writers to explore the human condition. I set my debut novel, The Four, in a fictional elite boarding school found in an idyllic corner of English countryside. High Realms is nestled in a wooded valley not far from the sea, surrounded by farmland on which sheep peacefully graze and birds glide over the heather. The interior of the school is anything but tranquil.

I didn’t have a particular school in mind when I was writing The Four—the novel was more based on my experience of going to Oxford University after attending a very average state school. But I am fond of books and films set in schools, and to that end have compiled a short list of those I found myself going back to or thinking about while I wrote my novel. This isn’t a ‘top 5’ or even ‘my favorite five’, but rather those that wriggled to the top of my consciousness while I was writing The Four.

Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl

‘I would never write an autobiography’ claims Roald Dahl, at the start of this —the first instalment of his autobiography. It spans the author’s life from birth to the age of about 21, including his time at Llandaff Cathedral School, a boys’ boarding prep school in Wales, and then at Repton School, a famous public school in Derbyshire. It’s as vivid and entertaining as many of Dahl’s works of fiction, and I love it for his wry observation of the idiosyncrasies of these stuffy British institutions, his irreverent attitude to authority, his way of brilliantly characterizing figures from his past in just a few words, and his ability to be vulnerable without being mawkish.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

I love Sittenfeld’s writing, and Prep is no exception. Set in the ironically named ‘Ault’ private school on the East Coast of the US, this novel is compelling and incredibly immersive. It follows a young woman, Lee Fiora, who becomes fixated on going to Ault after reading the brochure. Her family can’t afford it but she manages to get a scholarship. It’s a beautiful coming-of-age story; one of the most brutally honest and insightful portrayals of adolescence that I’ve come across. Ault appears to be modeled on famous British public schools and it’s interesting to see the larger-than-life rendering of these environments of status and privilege.

Dead Poets Society

This moving film was recommended to me by the (brilliant) first editor I worked with on The Four. A gloriously vivid, heart-rending depiction of love and friendship at an American boys’ boarding school. The boarding school experience is romanticized here to be largely one of camaraderie and mischief. The film features wonderful, candid performances, most memorably from the late Robin Williams, and strikingly beautiful filmography that captures the heady, transient, sometimes tragic moments of an adolescence spent living with your pals.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

A classic. This one’s set in a university—the elite, fictional Hampden College on the East Coast. It follows Richard, a young man from California who finds himself a fish out of water among the wealthy, privileged students at Hampden. Richard becomes fascinated by a group of aloof, alluring Classics students and changes courses to study with them. No spoilers, because if you haven’t yet read The Secret History I want you to taste its delights for yourself, but it’s one of the most gripping, horrifying and—now—iconic portrayals of the fatal influence of power and privilege.

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

Alice Winn’s debut centers on two students at a prestigious, fictional school called Preshute (loosely based on Marlborough College, which Winn attended) at the outbreak of the First World War. Like Dead Poets Society, Winn’s depiction of boarding school is largely a positive one, highlighting the friendships (and love) that can flourish in closed environments. She contrasts this poignantly with the gory brutality of the First World War, where the two young men find themselves on the front line. It is a love story, full of heart, humor, and devastating horror.

About The Four by Ellie Keel:

We were always The Four. From our very first day at High Realms.

The four scholarship pupils. Outsiders in a world of power and privilege. And, according to everyone else, we were dangerous.

It would have made our lives a lot easier if Marta had simply pushed our prefect Genevieve out of our bedroom window that day. Certainly, it would have been tragic. She would have died instantly.

But Marta didn’t push her then, or–if you choose to believe me–at any other time. If she had, all of what we went through would not have happened.

I’ve told this story as clearly as I could–as rationally as I’ve been able, in the circumstances, to achieve. I don’t regret what we did. And I would do it all again.