In the inner sanctum of an elite 1960s boarding school boys test their boundaries and class when they welcome an outsideramp10One New England boysamp8217 boarding school a bastion of the WASP aristocracy has been holding out stubbornly against pressure to diversify Grudgingly St Philipamp8217s School in New Hampshire opens its doors to its first scholarship student young Woodrow Skaggs from Pontiac Michigan the tough roughedged son of an autoworkeramp10Things do not go smoothlythe world portrayed in Pontiac may be shockingly inappropriate to the readers of today The attitudes of the St Philipamp8217s students toward gender and sex cruelly predict the treatment girls will receive twenty years later when many of these schools become coeducational And yet in their awkward often violent attempts to figure each other out the boys of St Philipamp8217s also provide a window to better more tolerant times aheadamp10Told through memories vignettes letters and compelling conversation Pontiac sees journalist and author Jim Schutze bring a keen and empathetic eye to the evolutions of culture in the twentieth centuryamp10
