The Headmaster's Darlings

"In this Southern comedy of manners, Clark explores the world of charismatic, eccentric assistant headmaster Norman Laney as he attempts to reshape the cloistered world of high-society Alabama from within. . . . An insider's guide to the drama of the debutante set and a perceptive look at the growing pains of a community attempting to change its deeply entrenched ways. A funny, gossipy look at a slice of the South through the eyes of an indelible character."—Kirkus Reviews

"Katherine Clark knows how to capture a world, turn a phrase, tell a story, and write a comedy of manners that peels the beautiful layers off Mountain Brook society and shows the rancor and ugliness and tragedy below. . . . [She] will write her name in the book of great Alabama writers, and she will long be remembered as the creator of Norman Laney, the greatest portrait of an American teacher I have ever read, immortalized, as I believe he richly deserves, by one of his golden girls, one of his darlings. Here's how good this book is—for the rest of my life I will also be one of Norman Laney's darlings."—Pat Conroy, from the foreword

"With a jaundiced eye reminiscent of Tom Wolfe, Katherine Clark takes aim at the 'tiny kingdom' of Mountain Brook, Alabama, in her frank and feisty debut novel, The Headmaster's Darlings. In her riveting narrative, Clark delves into the mores and foibles of a hermetically sealed southern suburb and its prep school, where an obese, quixotic college counselor Norman Laney - a combination of Ignatius Riley, Truman Capote, and a Florentine prince - wields his wit, aspiring students, and sheer size as weapons of social change in his battle against a traditional Confederate mythology."—Lanier Scott Isom, journalist and co-author of Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay and Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond

2015 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction
2016 Florida Book Awards, Bronze Medal for General Fiction