Private School Secrets in “Madam”

You guys, this book.

I was interested in Madam, by Phoebe Wynne, as soon as the publicist mentioned The Secret History and Rebecca, but I couldn’t start it immediately because I just started a new teaching post. More on that in a moment.

In Madam, Rose Christie is a mid-twenties classics teacher, who’s offered a dream job at an upscale girls’ school in Scotland. I love stories set in girls’ schools, and the isolated campus was perfect. This is a creeping gothic novel where everything is just a little off,  but the protag has the practicality that comes from classroom teaching and the example of her historical women, from Dido to Medea.

I wasn’t able to start reading this one immediately because I’ve just changed jobs. I accepted a higher-paid, more prestigious teaching job at a new university, a great career opp, especially in covid times. In this dystopian hellscape of online teaching, my first weeks have been full of new colleagues promising to give me essential information and then disappearing, or promised orientation meetings being postponed until long after classes have started. It’s not ideal.

At first, Rose has the same situation in her new job. Other teachers make vague references to the important things their girls are doing, and the unexplained extra lessons they’re taking, and promise that everything will be explained soon. Really soon. Not right now, of course, just keep teaching lessons.  There are these constant gothic hints that something is very wrong at this posh boarding school and something very dark is happening just off-screen, blended with some realistically snotty teenage students rolling their eyes and telling Rose that she really doesn’t know anything yet.

As Rose discovers what’s actually happening at her new job, there’s an even creepier investigation about who is complicit and connected, and what everyone around her is getting out of working or studying at Caldonbrae Hall. A lot of the students are legacies, and all are from upper-class, well-connected families. Some of graduates stay on in cushy teaching or “pastoral” roles. Seems like (almost) everyone around Rose just loves the school community and the opportunities it provides.

This novel is an absolute page-turner, because I was so desperate to figure out just what Rose had gotten herself into and especially what had happened to the previous classics teacher.

Madam will be out from St. Martin’s Press on May 18, 2021. Thanks to the publisher for the advance copy. Opinions are my own, obvs.