The Finishing School was a quick read about jealousy in a camp-like setting. Rowland and his wife Nina run a somewhat sketchy 'finishing school' for rich teenagers. Among the current crop of students in Lausanne, Switzerland is Chris, a red-head whose work on a historical novel about Mary Queen of Scots inspires an obsessive envy in Rowland, who teaches the creative writing class and is trying to write his own novel. Scottish author Muriel Spark is billed as "the great dame of literary satire," but I think most of this went over my head. Her parsimonious use of language was very precise and admirable, but I didn't think it was so funny or develop a deep connection to this book.

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