My Oxford Year: A Novel

Chapter 1 begins with a quote from Robert Browning’s “Home-Thoughts, From Abroad,” 1845.

Eleanor “Ella” Durran waits in the customs line at Heathrow Airport in late September. She gets a call from Gavin Brookdale, the former White House chief of staff. Gavin is backing Janet Wilkes, a successful, grass-roots senator, for the presidential election against former vice president George Hillerson. Janet and Gavin read Ella’s article on education in The Atlantic, and they know Ella has already helped with two other politicians’ campaigns. Gavin wants Ella to be Janet’s education consultant. Ella explains that she is spending the next year studying Victorian literature at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Gavin wants Ella to come home, noting that literature is not as important as politics, but Ella offers to work from England. The customs agent and people in line press Ella to hurry, and she goes through customs after Gavin says he will call her back.

When Ella was 13 and struggling with her family life, she read an article about an American girl having a transformative year at Oxford, which became her dream. After customs, Ella buys her ticket back to the US for June. Ella sought the Rhodes Scholarship because she fits in with the ambitious planners known as “Rhodies.