Reflections On A Tragedy - by Richard Joyce (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

About The Book

Reflections on a Tragedy is the title of the first of three books (volumes) which appear under the general heading: "A Texan Affair". This book, Reflections on a Tragedy, follows the fortunes, failures, and experiences of two young schoolteachers, Bill (American), Adam (English), who form an unusual friendship as colleagues working in a private high school on the plains of North Texas.

Bill, very popular with the students, is a Maverick, unwilling to submit to the authorities' orthodox and conventional educational principles, imposing instead his own liberal views, and splitting the harmony of the school down the middle. Adam, on his first teaching assignment, and sharing much of Bill's own distaste for Establishment rigidity, quickly finds a friend and ally in Bill. Bill is already active in State politics, and together they distribute Liberal leaflets round the local University campus and talk light-heartedly of a school production of 'Hamlet'. A buoyant air pervades not just the school, but the country itself, in the early Fall of 1963, and the naïve Adam wants a part of this exuberance. Neither is aware of the events that are about to change their lives forever....

About The Author

The author was educated at a boarding school in rural England and obtained an M.A in Modern Languages from Cambridge. For a number of years, he worked in London as a freelance teacher, journalist and broadcaster. He has travelled widely, teaching in Germany, Canada and the United States, as well as his native England. In 1963, he took a teaching assignment in Texas, where he obtained much of the background for this allegorical, epic novel of vigorous youth, fierce endeavor, and gentle experience. He currently writes and teaches in England's West Country.

'All the world's a stage...'