CHAPTER ONE: The author arrives on Exeter’s campus, has an off-putting introduction to his roommate and chronicles the circumstances, defining exchange and backdrop to his presence there.

CHAPTER TWO: His first few months, the rising tensions with his roommate and within his dormitory, a frightening attack on a dorm-mate by town residents and a chastening encounter with a former grade-school hero.

CHAPTER THREE: The end of the fall-semester of 9th-grade, marked by academic success and the traumatic family episode that mars his return home for Christmas vacation.

CHAPTER FOUR: Winter and spring terms of 9th grade, during which he gets caught literally in the middle of a fistfight between a teacher and a student and is taken aback by a classmate’s superior imagination.

CHAPTER FIVE: The changing face of class loyalty as a major theme, as is having to deal with an unexpected early-semester demand by a faculty member and an exposure to a famous alumnus’s profoundly affecting novel.

CHAPTER SIX: The school votes to become coeducational, the campus reaction to Kent State, plus first-stirrings of later success in racquet sports and a discomfortingly memorable scene in the last few days of 10th grade.

CHAPTER SEVEN: A noteworthy bicycle trip through dangerous territory and a boundary line is crossed in a doomed attempt to make the JV basketball team.

CHAPTER EIGHT: A bitter and undeserved disappointment in a bid to become Sports Editor that becomes engulfed in school politics touched off by one inflammatory event.

CHAPTER NINE: Laying the groundwork for senior year, diving into the college-admissions process and skipping the climactic football game to cram for a potentially defining exam.

CHAPTER TEN: The thrill of early-acceptance to Harvard proves transitory after confronting the excessive price for that outcome and having a quixotic hope swiftly dashed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: A “Eureka moment” which transforms priorities and perseveres through the growing pains encountered in a new pursuit.

CHAPTER TWELVE: An unconventional decision in a choice of college, the salvaging of a senior-project in a way that earns a mentor’s respect and feeling gypped out of an award he is convinced he has earned.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A tumultuous graduation, partially rectified shortly thereafter by a more fitting parting to the school and the sport he loves.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The frequent favors he undertakes in subsequent years on Exeter’s behalf, most of them obstructed, unappreciated and/or unrequited.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Attending a recent Exeter graduation and the striking difference in student attitudes around the occasion between his era and the current one.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The author catches the reader up on where his classmates are now and is forced by someone else’s innocent question to try to finally resolve his undulating feelings about and relationship to Exeter.
 

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