Sophie Gee

in the late 80s and 90s, where the shape of the chocolate had a corresponding shape in the kind of plastic underlay that was in the chocolate box.

She actually picked up on that.

So shout out to Curtis Sittenfeld for picking up on all those details.

And for the juxtaposing detail, the way we know that Lee is a lower middle class character is that whereas other girls get sent special chocolates and tortoiseshell headbands and even nice lingerie by their parents, Lee's mother sends her three boxes of maxi pads,

that she's got on sale at the local chemist.

She wants the students on their desks saying, oh, captain, my captain.

It's totally true.

It's a great chapter.

And I think one of the things that's really clever about it again is, you know, this is always what Sippenfeld does.

She has a sort of understory to the major narrative, which is telling a parallel or shadow story to the overarching plot.

So the overarching plot is another outsider story.

In comes Miss Moray, or Moray as probably the Americans would say.

And she confesses to having the same upbringing as Lee, as you said.

She says, I grew up in Dubuque, Iowa, which is up north.

I went to the U of I, the University of Iowa, for undergrad.

Go Hawkeyes!

Which, of course, the class just has total contempt for because they're not interested in the Midwest or Iowa.

She was not entirely at ease, I realized, thinks Lee.

And as soon as I thought it, I thought, of course she's not.

Not only was it her first day teaching at Ault, it was her first day teaching, period.