The narrator of The Education of Robert Nifkin is Nifkin himself; the novel is supposedly his essay response to an admissions form for St. Leon's College (probably intended as a parallel to Pinkwater's own alma mater Bard College). One of the (in his opinion, absurd) questions on the admissions application was: 64. Characterize, in essay form, your high-school experience. You may use additional sheets of paper as needed.

Since Pinkwater would have been applying for college himself in the 1950s, the novel may well be the imaginative response he would have liked to have given to a similar topic on his own admission application. Since author and protagonist both have Chicago backgrounds, it is easy to draw a parallel between Nifkin's admiration of the city's architecture, his love of art, and his absorption in American literature with Pinkwater's own likely experience as an artistic young man who...