Parents' Day is a 1951 novel by Paul Goodman. Written as autobiographical fiction based on the author's experiences teaching at the upstate New York progressive boarding school Manumit during the 1943–1944 year, the book's narrator grapples with his homosexuality and explores a series of sexual attractions and relationships that culminates in his being fired by the school. Goodman wrote the novel as part of a Reichian self-analysis begun in 1946 to better understand his own life. He struggled to find a publisher and ultimately self-published through a friend's small press. Reviewers remarked on unease in Goodman's sexual revelations, lack of self-awareness, and lack of coherence in the text. Parents' Day sold poorly and has been largely forgotten, save for some recognition as an early gay American novel.
Background
In the United States during the era of this book's publication, homosexuality was deemed a mental illness with deleterious effects on health. Literature covering gay issues was scarce. By the time of the book's publication, its author, Paul Goodman had developed a reputation for publishing on a panoply of topics.
Synopsis
In Parents' Day, an unnamed male in his thirties begins teaching at a private school early in World War II. He is a single parent, having split with his wife. Early in the novel, the narrator announces his homosexuality and love for the 17-year-old Davy Drood. The narrator augurs that he will be fired for having a sexual relationship with a student, whereas heterosexual relationships with students were tolerated. When Davy seeks to have sex with a female student, the narrator tells the headmaster that they should provide contraceptives and facilitate an occasion for the pair. He questions whether he should tell Davy's mother on Parents' Day about his sexual attraction to Davy. The narrator has sex with a woman while thinking of Davy. He reveals that he had manually stimulated Davy through the blankets and the narrator ejaculated in his own pants. Jeff Deegan, a student with a crush on the narrator, fights Davy on Parents' Day. In a jealous betrayal by Jeff, the narrator is fired from the school.
The narrator's poems intersperse the text.
Publication
Parents' Day is autobiographical fiction in which Goodman explores and exaggerates his experience teaching at the upstate New York progressive boarding school Manumit, where he taught during the 1943–1944 school year until his firing for reasons related to his homosexual activity.
Goodman, in an effort to change his character and find his life's purpose, underwent a self-psychoanalysis beginning in 1946. From a disciple of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, Goodman learned Reichian techniques, which he performed as a set of unsequenced exercises rather than an ordered program. After half a year with this disciple and half a year of Goodman's own free association, dream analysis, and other exercises, Goodman's self-analysis extended into an autobiographical novel based on the experiences at a progressive boarding school that led to his firing. This writing exercise gradually replaced his Reichian practice and exemplified how Goodman returned to his artistic practice to better understand his own life. Goodman's result, written from first-person perspective, was only barely concealed as fiction.
Goodman makes little effort to distinguish himself from his narrator characters throughout his fiction. In his life he celebrated his sexuality much the same as his characters celebrate theirs. The communal and psychosexual properties of physical touch are a recurring theme in his novels, as in Parents' Day the narrator's physical intimacy is expressed as an educational tool. Goodman referred to Parents' Day, alongside Making Do and The Break-up of Our Camp, as his three "community novels". The narrators in Parents' Day and Making Do are indistinguishable from Goodman's own persona as "a man of letters [and] man of the streets".
Parents' Day was originally titled The Fire, in reference to an incident in the book based on the real fire incident at Manumit during Goodman's 1943–1944 teaching year. It was later retitled. Goodman prepared a preface for the book that was cut prior to publication. Goodman's brother, Percival, illustrated the book. While Goodman finished the manuscript in 1949, he struggled to find a publisher based on the book's content.