The Encampment - (Miss Oliver's School for Girls) by Stephen Davenport (Hardcover)

About the Book

"There are only two rules at Miss Oliver's School for Girls that lead to automatic expulsion: stealing, and permitting a male who is not a family member into a dormitory. The head of school's daughter breaks both when she meets a homeless man on the street. The third installment of the Miss Oliver's School for Girls series, The Encampment follows high school senior Sylvia Bickham as learns to navigate between the rules of society and the morals of the conscience"--

Book Synopsis

Honored by Kirkus Reviews as one of The Best Indie Books of 2020.

"Davenport is an accomplished stylist with a keen ear for nuanced dialogue; he also has a knack for making serious political points with a light touch that makes them broadly accessible. . . A thoughtful and compelling account of the responsibilities that come with privilege."
--Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

There are only two rules at Miss Oliver's School for Girls that lead to automatic expulsion: stealing, and permitting a male who is not a family member into a dormitory. The head of school's daughter has broken both.

Trouble approaches on a warm September day when Sylvia Perrine Bickham, the head of school's daughter, gives money to a homeless man on the street. Through some prying, she and her friends learn he is a veteran of the Iraq War and probably suffering from post-traumatic stress, so they sneak food and clothing to his lean-to at odd hours of the day and agree to tell no one-not the teachers, and especially not Sylvia's mother, Rachel. But talk of things gone missing from the school is getting louder, and Rachel knows something is up. More importantly, winter is coming and Sylvia worries the man will freeze if he stays outside. Have they done all they can for him? Have they done enough? What is enough.

Vivid, riveting, and utterly engrossing, The Encampment is the third installment of the Miss Oliver's School for Girls series.

Review Quotes

"This novel brings us back to our home ground of independent schools--and the boarding school that has been at the center of Davenport's ambitious trilogy. This concluding work, like its predecessors, manages adroitly to combine its own genre about the little world of single-sex prep schools with the sudden clash of a large moral wrong and the instinctive reaction of three sheltered students."
--National Association of Independent Schools (newsletter)

"Some are called to serve in schools. Some are called to write. Davenport is called to both."
--Annie Dillard

"In the first volume of author Steve Davenport's remarkable school trilogy, Miss Oliver's School for Girls, the reader learns 'the what' of a women's boarding school in a year of turmoil. Every aspect of the school's life comes alive from the many perspectives of: students, teachers, administrators, trustees, alumnae, and parents during the first, crisis-ridden year of a new--and male!--school head. In the second volume, No Ivory Tower, the reader examines 'the how' of the school's life as the new head of school--a brilliant woman of color--works tirelessly to bring all of the school's constituents together while avoiding extreme financial and parental pressures within the school. . . While both of these novels are extraordinary, the third volume of the trilogy, The Encampment, is perhaps the most complex and challenging. The time is twenty years later, and the head of school is now a seasoned veteran. Her only child, a daughter, is a senior at Miss Oliver's School and, for the first time, living in the dorm. The daughter's adventures with her roommate consume much of this novel, but the reader also sees 'the why' of the school world through the eyes of a mid-life professional educator. Will these two seniors find their voices and empower themselves for future lives of success and service only to ignore a compelling social and moral issue right in front of them? Steve Davenport will transport the reader through another academic year and a multi-level crisis as only he, a former school head, can do. This is a must read!"
--Peter Buttenheim, Williamstown, MA, former independent school teacher and administrator

"The Encampment is the third in Steve Davenport's series about a New England boarding school. But this book goes well beyond the stories previously told as it features the vital and important issues of our time--homelessness, PTSD, race and class. Through a compelling story and vivid characterizations, Davenport brings these issues to life in ways that deepen our understanding of the people who live among us, but about whom we know little. This book is not only for readers familiar with boarding and independent schools, but for anyone who seeks a page-turning read which will not just entertain, but will leave you with much to ponder about our society."
--Mimi Baer, former Executive Director of the California Association of Independent Schools

"Steve Davenport has an especially keen sense of young people and what makes them and their schools tick. While society's implicit message to teenagers is that they live in an ineffectual 'holding pattern' until they become grown-ups, Steve understands that what they most yearn for is to be needed--to have real work to do that matters. They want agency, to be 'players' in the drama unfolding on the world stage. They want to count, and to be counted. Having such agency confers a sense of worth that shapes identity and links personal learning to public caring. . . The Encampment's lead characters are inspiring examples of just that."
--Al Adams, E.D., life-long teacher, school head, and thought-leading originator of the 'private school with public purpose' movement