The Headmaster's Wife

Thomas Christopher Greene (Get this book)
A headmaster and his wife suffer intimations of mortality on a bucolic Vermont campus. The first half of Greene's fourth novel (Envious Moon, 2007, etc.) unfolds like a conventional academic tale. The third generation head of Lancaster, an exclusive Vermont prep school, Arthur Winthrop (his father, the former head, still lives on campus) leads an orderly life, except for occasional brushes with imperious board members whose New England pedigrees are even more elite than his own. Although the puzzle element threatens to overwhelm the narrative, this is a moving testament to the vicissitudes of love and loss, regret and hope--Kirkus