Douglas Looks Inside Privilege and Pressure

Geoffrey Douglas

In speaking with Adjunct English Prof. Geoffrey Douglas, it’s clear he’s still ashamed of his role in shunning an outcast farm boy at the elite St. Paul’s School 50 years ago, and is still plagued by revisiting the vulnerable boy he once was.

Douglas relives these tormented and privileged days in his latest non-fiction book, “The Classmates: Privilege, Chaos and the End of an Era,” which incorporates the compelling early life stories of several classmates, the most famous being U.S. Sen. John Kerry. In fact, the tome came together in part due to Kerry’s unsuccessful run for president, when former classmates reconnected over e-mail, initially to talk of his prospects. Over time, the e-mails expanded, becoming more personal, ultimately serving as a candid prism into who the students once were, and the men they became.

The characters in the book are varied – including Kerry, the pseudonymed farm boy who is treated cruelly for his differences, and Douglas himself, portrayed honestly as a lonely, smart, unfocused and willful boy trying to fit in with Brooks Brothers set with the requisite cool sneer of sarcasm. The power of the ruling clique, known as the “Regs” for “regular guys” and the hurt they inflict on anyone with any palpable weakness is described in gut-wrenching detail, including a scene in which the ill-bred farm boy is forced to sit on a toilet in a freezing field, while students throw quarters at him.

In a lengthy review, Newsweek’s book critic describes the book as “often wrenching,” saying “Douglas writes in a spare, elegiac style that makes one feel he is sitting at vespers, quietly murmuring the evensong prayer while dreading the approach of a sneering, Brooks Brothers-clad Reg.” 

“The Classmates,” Douglas’ fourth book, is available on amazon.com.