The Headmaster’s Wife

Several times a week, I cross the green at the center of the Vermont College of Fine Arts campus, the elite arts school started by Thomas Christopher Greene. So when I saw his novel, The Headmaster’s Wife, with the familiar orange maple leaves and grand brick buildings on its cover, I wondered: How closely would Greene’s fiction reflect his real life and the Vermont hillsides I call home? The mirror is in place, certainly–I recognize Green’s version of New England–but he also uses it to illuminate unexpected pockets of the human experience, like the overwhelming power of grief. At the same time, he engages readers in an entirely intriguing and beguiling mystery. Just when you think you know what Headmaster Arthur Winthrop is all about, you learn something new that changes everything. And then a few pages later, it happens again. Written partly to help the author get through his own grieving process after the loss of a child, The Headmaster’s Wife is a quick, page-turning read that entertains even as it tackles life’s big questions.