One of Abbott's five most dangerous mentors in fiction, as told to The Daily Beast:
The Prime of Miss Jean BrodieRead about the other books on Abbott's list.
by Muriel Spark
“Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life.” For any writer tackling the theme of dangerous mentors, it begins with Spark’s novel, and so it was for me. For the six pupils under the tutelage of the seductive, witty and poisonous Miss Brodie in 1930s Edinburgh, the risks extend well beyond the classroom, culminating in disillusionment and ultimately betrayal for some and far worse for her most devoted disciple, the lamentable Mary Macgregor. But Miss Brodie’s hold on her power is hard to shake. “If the authorities wanted to get rid of her,” Spark’s narrator tells us, “she would have to be assassinated.”
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is among the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five top books on teaching and learning and Ian Rankin's six best books. Miss Jean Brodie is one of John Mullan's ten best teachers in literature.
--Marshal Zeringue