Boys will be ...
A psychologist’s study of a school’s students becomes a source of conflict years later
Dr. David Sklar’s new novel, “Atlas of Men,” is a striking and compelling blend of topics — including loss of innocence, schoolboy camaraderie, and on a broader level the attempt to right an institutional wrong.
The book begins with an upsetting scene that Sklar said is based on an event from his own life — when he and fellow teenage classmates in the 1960s were photographed in the nude, one by one, at Phillips Exeter Academy, a respected boarding school in New Hampshire.
“It was part of a research project put together by William H. Sheldon. It was supposed to measure people and classify them to predict who would be a leader … who a garbage collector,” Sklar said in a phone interview.
Sheldon was an American psychologist who theorized that somatotypes — certain body types — could predict individual achievement, smarts and morals.
(Phillips Exeter spokeswoman Robin Giampa was quoted on the website seacoastonline.com as saying that the prep school’s archivist confirmed that the student photographs were in fact part of a wellness checkup. Giampa said the website accurately quoted her.)
Sheldon’s somatotypes project happens to be a unifying theme in the novel. The protagonist is Philippine-born Robert Thames, a onetime student at Danvers Academy, a fictional New Hampshire prep school.
Years later, the adult Thames receives three large boxes that contain strange cargo — hundreds of files and nude photos of former Danvers students, Thames included. It was sent to him by Harold Hart, a former Danvers staff doctor, who surreptitiously updated the files over years.
The long-hidden files and photos document the long-running somatotypes research project at Danvers.
Hart’s letter to Thames accompanying the boxed files says in part, “My interpretation — which goes somewhat beyond Sheldon — is that the somatotypes are not tight, constricting molds, but, rather, costumes that can stretch like elastic to fit our individual variations and circumstances.”
At Hart’s urging, Thames kept the files. He zeroes in on the files concerning himself and his former bridge-playing buddies at Danvers — Richard, Mark, Tim and the occasional player, Steve.
Thames’ decision to retain the files leads to a reunion with his school chums whom he hasn’t seen in decades. Ultimately they confront the school about the truth behind its research project. It opens a window to other sensitive issues.
Sklar describes Thames through the stages of his life, including his adoption by American medical missionaries in the Philippines, his search for information about his long-deceased biological parents, and the faults of the research project’s physical profiles and its pernicious influence on Danvers’ students.
Thames is a sympathetic character. His intellectual growth seems to disprove the project’s conclusions about him. Thames becomes an infectious disease doctor who is open-minded, thoughtful and has a gentle manner that can comfort a friend with terminal cancer in Boston as easily as it can help a bare-bones hospital staff in Tanzania.
The novel’s title is taken from Sheldon’s own book “Atlas of Men: A Guide for the Somatotyping of Adult Males at All Ages.”
Sklar is a professor at Arizona State University’s Department of Health Solutions, where he teaches evidence-based medicine and classes that combine humanities and health “to help us understand more what we can do in health care.” Sklar is also professor emeritus of emergency medicine at the University of New Mexico’s Health Sciences Center, where he still teaches. He is author of “La Clinica,” a memoir of his experiences in a rural Mexican clinic.