The Pupil

A young tutor accepts a position with the Moreen family, a clan of wealthy American expatriates who speak of nothing but feelings and the aristocracy, and who never quite get around to discussing money. Pemberton needs the post desperately, and the Moreens know it. Their son Morgan, a quick, pale boy trapped in a house of hollow pleasantries, is the first person in the family to speak to him with any honesty. The boy sees through his parents' evasions, their endless social performances, their refusal to acknowledge the precariousness that haunts everyone around them. What develops between tutor and pupil is something like real love, or the closest approximation possible in a household built on dissimulation. James writes with devastating precision about the cruelty of charm, the violence of emotional neglect dressed in luxury, and the particular tragedy of a child who understands everything and controls nothing.