Old World

""Dearest One--We want to tell you what's become of us."" So begins this slim, ethereal novel about a WWII refugee and her relationship with four middle-class Massachusetts high-school students. A quarter century after flirtatious, erudite Anna Aylmer selected a quartet of male students for extracurricular instruction, the four gather for a contemplative Christmas-time trip to the Caribbean. The first part of the novel, an imaginary letter from them to her, recalls Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides in its mode of group-reminiscence; the second section is written in the voice of the teacher, a refugee from both the Spanish Civil War and WWII, who died in the boys' senior year. In language that is emotional but not sentimental, Strong's (Offspring) eighth work of fiction handles his multiple coming-of-age with an impresive balance of pathos and humor. (Sept.)