Daughters of the Revolution

Starred review from April 4, 2011
Cooke's flinty first novel, coming nearly 10 years after her much-acclaimed collection, The Bostons, grapples with another set of crafty New Englanders, all involved, one way or another, with the Goode School of Boston in the late 1960s: head Goddard "God" Byrd, a seductive male chauvinist of nearly retirement age, is dead set against allowing girls into his beloved institution despite being himself the product of radical New England reformers; Heck, product of "a brilliant class" at Goode, dies in a suspicious accident at sea while boating with his best friend, Rebozos, widowing his young bride, Mei-Mei; and Heck and Mei-Mei's daughter, EV, becomes an essential narrator, observing her widowed mother's clumsy affair with Byrd, and growing friendly with the first girl admitted to the school in 1969, Caroleâthe half-black teenage daughter of Rebozos, it turns out. Each of the characters offers his or her own trajectory, moving through the 1970s and into the '80s, from Carole's political and artistic iconoclasm to EV's sexual initiation and move to New York, through to 2005, when Goode's transformation comes full circle. Though these taut narratives live in the book more as discrete stories than as moving parts of a novel, they are individually excellent. Cooke delivers on every page.

January 1, 2011

During the late Sixties, even as talk of integration and sexual revolution rages, the ornery headmaster of the reputation-rich, cash-poor Goode School resists efforts at coeducation. Then, through an oversight, the school admits a very smart black girl. Lots of anticipation for this first novel, as Cooke's story collection, The Bostons, won the 2002 PEN/Robert Bingham award for a first book. A good bet for most collections; with a three-city tour and a reading group guide.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2011
In her amazing first novel, short story writer Cooke bridges the two forms as she introduces her characters in chapters that can stand on their own but which together create a complex and challenging structure. At the center of the novel is an aging prep school for boys run by Goddard ByrdGod to his friendswhose ideas in the 1960s and 1970s are as antiquated and shabby as the school. All the characters are connected to the school and one another by money and social standing, or lack thereof, as well as by a desire to be more than themselves and an undercurrent of fear. Gods absolute rule against female students is thwarted by a typographical error, leading to the admission of an African American scholarship girl who shakes the school and everyone associated with it to their foundations. Although the setting is a boys school, the power in Cookes nuanced tale rests in the womenthe mothers and daughters, secretaries, friends, and trusteeswho carry the story forward.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)