In the novel, Philip Malloy is angry because his English teacher, Miss Margaret Narwin, gives him a D, which means he can't be on the track team. He acts out in her homeroom, humming the national anthem under his breath when he is supposed to be silent and respectful. The vice principal is called in after several days and Phillip is suspended. He tells his parents he was suspended for singing the National Anthem. This...
In the novel, Philip Malloy is angry because his English teacher, Miss Margaret Narwin, gives him a D, which means he can't be on the track team. He acts out in her homeroom, humming the national anthem under his breath when he is supposed to be silent and respectful. The vice principal is called in after several days and Phillip is suspended. He tells his parents he was suspended for singing the National Anthem. This is a lie, as Phillip doesn't know the words to the anthem. Nevertheless, Phillip's father, thinking the story is true, tells it to his neighbor who is running for the school board. Ted Griffen (the neighbor) tells it to a reporter as a symptom of what's wrong with the school system: after all, why would they suspend a student for being patriotic? This small, distorted incident becomes a news story that gains national prominence when it goes out over the AP wire.
The novel is an exploration of how a small lie can go out of control when people use to it further their own agendas without probing too deeply into its veracity. It's also a comment on silence: one wonders, for instance, why Miss Narwin doesn't say more to the reporter, despite being stunned, to set the record straight. Phillip's small lie upends life for a number of people. The novel thus invites us to look more closely at what truth is and why people tell the stories they do.
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