An upscale New England prep school is the setting for an intense confrontation between a brilliant Latin teacher and a precocious student in Southgate's quietly stunning second novel (after Another Way to Dance). Jeremy Washington is the erudite African-American academic whose carefully constructed world begins to collapse with the simultaneous arrival of Jana Hansen, a high-spirited, divorced English teacher, and Rashid Bryson, one of the few African-American students at the elite Chelsea School. Hansen makes the first dent in Washington's emotional armor when the attraction between the two teachers bubbles over into a romantic night after they chaperone a school dance. But Hansen is put off by Washington's reluctance to help her with the troubled Bryson, who is struggling to deal with the tragic death of his brother, Kofi, a former scholarship student whose promising stint at a private school was curtailed when he was killed in a random shooting in their Brooklyn neighborhood. Washington cites the youth's lack of discipline as the reason for his unwillingness, but when Bryson calls out Washington after receiving a blatantly unfair grade in Latin class, their meeting strikes a chord from Washington's own troubled past that reveals the real source of his antipathy. Southgate is a compelling storyteller who slowly builds tension while drawing three marvelously diverse characters, and her plot transcends its racial themes as she steers her charges toward a surprising but believable ending. This is a deeply thoughtful, literate novel, and Southgate's ability to explore the social and emotional elements that unite and divide us establishes her as a serious talent. Agent, Geri Thoma. (Jan.)
