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Reminiscent of The History Boys and also of The Virgin Suicides, this is a beautifully written, incisive and darkly humorous novel that allows us to see down the school halls and into the classrooms, peep behind the locked doors of the staffroom, and observe teachers who are both tender and cruel, as well as students who are nowhere near as self-aware as they think they are.
Hummingbirds is the story of a year in the life of the Carmine-Casey School for Girls, a wealthy prep school on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
At the book's centre are two parallel rivalries. First there is the popular student Dixie Doyle, who wears ironic pigtails and heads a group of coquettish girls, and her adversary, the self-destructively smart girl, Liz Warren. Then there is the adored Leo Binhammer, who has for years been the only male teacher in the English department, and his rival, Ted Hughes, the charismatic new teacher. Hughes has a uneasy connection to Binhammer and threatens his position at the school and in the hearts of the girls, but at the same time he manages to charm Binhammer into an unusual friendship.
As the story unfolds, two worlds intersect-the adult world becoming irresistibly seductive to the girls, and the dewy haze of teenage girlhood. becoming a trap into which the flailing teachers fall. The web holding these characters together is an intricate one, full of loyalties, allure, competition and camaraderie.
Hummingbirds is the story of a year in the life of the Carmine-Casey School for Girls, a wealthy prep school on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
At the book's centre are two parallel rivalries. First there is the popular student Dixie Doyle, who wears ironic pigtails and heads a group of coquettish girls, and her adversary, the self-destructively smart girl, Liz Warren. Then there is the adored Leo Binhammer, who has for years been the only male teacher in the English department, and his rival, Ted Hughes, the charismatic new teacher. Hughes has a uneasy connection to Binhammer and threatens his position at the school and in the hearts of the girls, but at the same time he manages to charm Binhammer into an unusual friendship.
As the story unfolds, two worlds intersect-the adult world becoming irresistibly seductive to the girls, and the dewy haze of teenage girlhood. becoming a trap into which the flailing teachers fall. The web holding these characters together is an intricate one, full of loyalties, allure, competition and camaraderie.