Phillips Exeter Academy - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Certain works are based on Exeter and portray the lives of its students. Many are written by alumni who disguise Exeter's name, but not its character. Key works are listed below.

• A Separate Peace: This novel by John Knowles '45, is set at "Devon", a thinly-veiled fictionalization of Exeter, in the summer of 1942. The climactic scene of the novel is set in the Ralph Adams Cram-designed Chapel. A movie based on the novel was filmed on campus in 1972.
• A Prayer for Owen Meany: In this novel by John Irving '61, the protagonist/narrator, John Wheelwright (Irving lived with his parents in Wheelwright Hall and Wheelwright was the founder of the town of Exeter), and his best friend, Owen Meany, are both day students at Gravesend Academy, modeled after Exeter. Owen writes a popular column in The Grave (modeled after The Exonian) called "The Voice", which is critical of the school administration and the Vietnam war, among other topics. The book was later adapted for the movie Simon Birch, although Exeter is not addressed in the film.
• The World According to Garp: In this novel by John Irving, the protagonist/narrator, T.S. Garp, is the illegitimate, only child of Jenny Fields, the school nurse at "Steering School", Irving's fictionalized name for Exeter. Young Garp grows up in Steering's infirmary, eventually attending the school and joining its wrestling team. The book was adapted into a screenplay for the film of the same name, starring Robin Williams, Glenn Close, and featuring a cameo by the author as a wrestling referee.
• Tea and Sympathy: This play by Robert Anderson (later a movie as well) treats the inner struggles of an Exeter student.
• In Revere, in Those Days: A novel by Roland Merullo, this is about a boy who, instead of attending public school in his predominantly Italian town in Massachusetts, attends Exeter and plays hockey.
• Marvel Comics' Warren Worthington III, aka Angel, attended Exeter as a child; he eventually sets up a scholarship at the school for "mutant kids". Later, X-Terminators members Boom-Boom, Rictor, and Skids also attend the school (thanks to Worthington's scholarship), where they are tormented by the other students.
• American Psycho: In this novel by Bret Easton Ellis the main character, Patrick Bateman, went to Exeter before the plot takes place.