The Small Room by May Sarton

I read The Small Room by May Sarton (published 1961) decades ago and the beginning of the novel has always stayed with me, a young woman, Lucy Winter, is heading to her new teaching job at a small prestigious women's college in New England.  It's quite an accomplishment for someone only 27 to be a professor but Lucy is feeling melancholy.  Her plan was to be married but that fell through and now Lucy is beginning a teaching career she didn't want and she is also plagued by fears that she is not prepared.  She wonders what does she really know about teaching?  What does it take to inspire one's students and get them to be  passionate about the subject one is teaching?

Later, after settling in at Appleton College, Lucy will face deeper questions about the dangers of getting too close to a student or remaining too detatched when a student needs your help.  The crisis that will bring these questions about happens shortly after Lucy arrives at Appleton.  One of the most brilliant students on campus, Jane Seaman, is caught plagerising an article she wrote for the school newspaper.   It is Lucy who discovers this plagerism and she brings it to the attention of the administration.  Plagerism means expulsion from Appleton College but the school is conflicted.  A plagerism expulsion would follow Jane Seaman throughout her life and so it's a harsh punishment.  Also Jane is the protege of a famous professor at the school, Professor Carryl Cope, one of the top Medieval History scholars in the country.  Professor Cope wants to protect Jane and sees herself when she was young in Jane  and feels guilt about putting too much pressure on the young woman to excel.  The student body gets wind of what is happening and they are angry knowing that had they done what Jane Seaman did they wouldn't be let off so lightly.

Battle lines are drawn and the question of what to do is debated over a number of faculty dinner parties as we are introduced to Lucy's colleagues, their lives off campus, their views about teaching, their different opinions about the best way to deal with Jane's plagerism.  Lucy because she is young and new to the academic politics at Appleton College becomes the sounding board for her colleagues as they confide to her about the school, what they think about teaching and what they think of each other.  Appleton, Lucy comes to see, is an insular community where the professors live too near to each other and to the campus.  They are lonely, argue, drink too much and they know each other too well but they are also brilliant teachers.

A little bit about the author May Sarton (1912 - 1995).  She was a talented poet and novelist who had a rebirth as a writer in the 1970's.  Ms Sarton was a pioneer in feminist and gay and lesbian literature.  She wrote openly about being a lesbian woman back in 1965 when she published Mrs Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, possibly her most well known novel.   In her later years May Sarton who had moved to York, Maine began publishing her journals: Journal of Solitude (about turning sixty), House by the Sea, Recovering, After the Stroke, At Seventy, At Eighty-Two.  Her journals are about solitude, nature, women, friendship, love, writing, illness, books, life, etc.  I enjoyed rereading The Small Room and the novel left me eager to begin May Sarton's journals which continue to have a wide readership.  I'll be turning sixty myself this year so maybe Journal of Solitude is the place to begin.