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Near the end of her book, Joy Schaverien writes: “What has been described is a set of circumstances that, despite being familiar and so regarded as mundane, are actually also quite extraordinary.” This is exactly what she has achieved in this book, which has something of a magisterial sweep about it in its investigation of so many aspects of the emotionally complex trauma the author describes as “boarding school syndrome”.
The book has an intensely strong impact, which partly derives from the author's unhurried pace, as she sifts out and examines different constituents of the syndrome. One of the many admirable dimensions of her achievement, and also a crucial one, is that the tone throughout is moderate, careful, and, above all, rational. Because she herself did not go to boarding school, the author feels she is something of an outsider to what she is describing, although this gives her a certain emotional distance from it. Many boarding school critics have themselves been through the system, and while there can obviously be a certain benefit of writing from “within”, the