‘Truants’ doesn’t skip chance to thrill

Kate Weinberg’s debut novel “The Truants” (★★★g; Putnam; 320 pages) is set in the intoxicating and sometimes toxic world of higher education.

Jess is an insecure freshman, desperate to get into a class taught by Dr. Lorna Clay, the beautiful, mysterious and magnetic professor whose expertise is Agatha Christie.

Jess’s charming hot mess of a roommate is sexy Georgie, popping pills and swilling vino between assignations with Alec, the dark and broodingly handsome (think Adam Driver) South African journalist who is visiting campus.

Did I mention he drives a hearse? Red flag, ladies? Not for the women of this college in East Anglia, England.

Everyone longs for Lorna Clay’s attentions, and when the favors of the campus’s most celebrated professor turn to Jess, she basks in the glow.

As Georgie’s partying spirals into substance abuse, Jess and Alec are thrown together more and more.

Despite the devotion of Jess’s lovable and levelheaded boyfriend Nick, Jess and Alec ditch their partners for a passionate weekend escape that will have disastrous results for the quintet.

Weinberg’s “truants” are skillfully drawn, compelling and complicated in equal measure.

Jess’s desire to escape her tidy and dull life at home with her coolly distant obstetrician mother for the mesmerizing thrall of Lorna’s life captures late adolescent disdain for the parents who raised you.

Chapters are so tautly paced that when the dramatic events finally spill forth midway through the book, it’s a blessed relief.

Weinberg is a crackling good writer. She captures the excruciating self-absorption and hyper selfawareness of early adulthood when every encounter seems personal.

And the novel’s urgent tempo gives the reader the sensation of heart palpitations. “Truants” is a novel worth skipping class for, and Weinberg’s writing marks the arrival of a sure talent.