Graham Hillard

In the penultimate chapter of ABSALOM, ABSALOM!, the masterpiece that was selected in THE OA poll as “Best Southern Novel of All Time,” William Faulkner writes of the Harvard dormitory shared by Quentin Compson and his Canadian roommate, Shrevlin McCannon, “There would be no deep breathing tonight.” Ninety-five years later and a thousand miles south, the prediction holds, for here in the prep-school classroom the student who wishes not to be called upon must not breathe.