The headmaster's wife, by Thomas Christoper Greene

When Arthur Winthrop sheds his clothes one winter morning in Central Park and is picked up by the police, his tale begins to unfold.  Annoyingly at first, it seems like an all-too-worn tale of a late middle-aged professor falling obsessively in love with an eighteen year old student.  Arthur, like his father before him, is headmaster at a prestigious private prep school in New England.  The object of his attentions is Betsy Pappas, a poor girl on scholarship.  She shows up in his literature class, which he has returned to teaching each semester on the advice of his Board.  Estranged from his wife, Elizabeth, who seems to have her own problems, he begins a one-sided affair with Betsy.  But as the story develops, it becomes obvious that much more is going on.  A well done combination of a mystery and an exploration of love and the choices that come to define us.  277 pp.