The foolishness and fakery committed in the pursuit of aristocracy give a nice sardonic edge to this strangely wistful novel [A Good School] about life in a bad prep school in the 1940s.

Founded to educate "sons of the gentry," Dorset Academy, with its queer "Cotswold" architecture, its shaky academic credentials and even shakier finances, has instead a reputation for taking in boys "no other school would touch." Yates deftly portrays the private misery of those unlucky enough to be associated with "a funny school," foremost among them William Grove, editor-by-default of the school paper.

Yates traces Grove's awkward passage through the hazings and initiations of adolescence with an autobiographical candor that sweetens the entire book. Besides Grove, the story encompasses a large number of amazingly distinct minor figures, including various eccentric schoolboys, beleaguered faculty members, and the tender, moonstruck daughter of the English master. The prose recalls...