Richard Joyce
Maverick is the title of the first of three books (volumes) which appear under the general heading: 'The Teachers'. This book, Maverick, follows the fortunes, failures and experiences of two young school teachers, Bill(American), Adam(English) who form an unusual friendship as colleagues working in a private high school on the plains of North Texas. Bill, very popular with the students, is a Maverick, unwilling to submit to the authorities’ orthodox educational principles, imposing instead his own liberal views, and splitting the harmony of the school down the middle. Adam, on his first teaching assignment, and sharing much of Bill’s own distaste for Establishment rigidity, quickly finds a friend and ally in Bill. Bill is already active in State politics, and together they distribute Liberal leaflets round the local University campus, and talk light-heartedly of a school production of ’Hamlet’. A buoyant air pervades not just the school, but the country itself, in the early Fall of 1963, and the naïve Adam wants a part of this exuberance. Neither is aware of the events that are about to change their lives forever... 3