The centaur

By John Updike

Subjects: Fathers and sons, High school teachers, Literature, Reading Level-Grade 12, award:national_book_award=fiction, Centaurs, Pennsylvania, fiction, Chiron (Greek mythology), Fantasy, Fathers and sons, fiction, Fiction, American fiction (fictional works by one author), Reading Level-Grade 11, Blizzards, National Book Award Winner, Teachers, fiction, Teachers, award:national_book_award=1964, Fiction in English, Teacher-student relationships

Description: In a small Pennsylvania town in the late 1940s, schoolteacher George Caldwell yearns to find some meaning in his life. Alone with his teenage son for three days in a blizzard, Caldwell sees his son grow and change as he himself begins to lost touch with his life. Interwoven with the myth of Chiron, the noblest centaur, and his own relationship to Prometheus, The Centaur is one of John Updike's most brilliant and unusual novels.