The lords of discipline

P. Conroy

As an Irish-American Roman Catholic from Savannah, Georgia, Will is an outsider and finds life as a first-year cadet in training at the Institute to be physically and emotionally brutal. But he finds solace in three boys who become his great friends: Tradd St. Croix, an "old Charlestonian" (from a very rich and respected family); Dante "Pig" Pignetti; and Mark Santoro, two brawny, Northern boys of Italian descent. He also respects the tough-talking, cigar-chomping Colonel "Bear" Berrineau (based on Thomas Nugent "The Boo" Courvoisie, a former Commandant at The Citadel) who asks the senior cadet McLean to look out for the Institute's first black cadet, Tom Pearce. But McLean's journey to manhood is full of twists and turns, as he meets a girl whose life he can never be a part of and hears rumors of The Ten, a mysterious Institute secret society that ensures certain cadets, deemed unacceptable to "wear the ring" (that is, to be a graduate of the Institute, who wear an exquisite ring denoting their alma mater), are run out by any means necessary.