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Sequel Requires Remedial Course

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By KAREN HAYMON LONG

Published: March 9, 2008

"Home School," by Charles Webb (Thomas Dunne Books, $22.95)

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson. We wish that you had left and stayed away. (With apologies to Simon & Garfunkel.)

Why Charles Webb ever wrote this sequel to "The Graduate," we will never know. Why not let the book and movie icons burn on in our memories?

If he felt compelled to write a second chapter to his classic, why did he pick such a mundane topic for the resurrection of his wicked Mrs. Robinson?

No clue.

What we do know is that "Home School" fails to live up to anything like his first effort, which led to the popular 1967 movie starring Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson and Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock, her nervous young lover.

In "Home School," Benjamin and Elaine (Mrs. Robinson's daughter, for those too young to recall the film) are married and have two sons they home school in hoity-toity White Plains, N.Y.

This being the late '70s, home schooling isn't nearly as popular as it is now. And soon they become entangled with a whacky couple pioneering the home school movement.

Although he's a Harvard graduate, Benjamin works as a lowly stacker at the public library. Elaine devotes herself to their sons' education, although Benjamin helps with that, too.

Just as the boys seem to be thriving, their old school's principal declares they must return to school.

This is where it gets very weird.

Seems Benjamin and Elaine have all but severed ties with Mrs. Robinson because of her lurid seduction of Benjamin so long ago. (As if he had nothing to do with it.) Yet, Benjamin asks her to fly from California to New York to seduce the principal and blackmail him by bugging their motel room. This so the boys can stay out of school.

Mrs. Robinson answers the call, seduces the principal, and the boys get to stay home.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Robinson decides not to leave the Braddocks' home, just as the weird home school couple arrives and, likewise, decides to stay.

Mrs. Robinson, being Mrs. Robinson, takes up with Garth, the home school guru - in the Braddocks' guest room.

Then, in a really sick passage, she tries to seduce Benjamin. Again.

It's all too much.

This book isn't all bad. The dialogue is natural and can be funny. But the plot, the subject matter and Mrs. Robinson fail miserably to live up to "The Graduate."

Karen Haymon Long is the Tribune's book editor.

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