The Miseducation of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly: The Diary of a Schools Rugby Player is a 2000 novel by Irish journalist and author Paul Howard, and the first in the best-selling Ross O'Carroll-Kelly series. It was adapted from a series of columns by Howard in the Sunday Tribune.[1][2][3]
The novel has many allusions to American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, from the many prolonged descriptions of the clothes worn by the characters to specific scenes such as Ross dispensing advice on the appropriate type of shoe to wear with chinos, which is taken almost word-for-word from a similar passage in Ellis's work. Several details were altered from the newspaper column; in the newspaper, Simon was the captain of the rugby team and lifted the trophy with the words "For Mom! For Dad! For Rock! For God!" — in the novel, Ross is captain. Howard observed that "in the early days I was trying to make the character [of Ross] as hateful as possible."[4]
Howard self-published the novel after several rejections, printing 5,000 copies and driving around Dublin selling copies to shops himself.[5][6] It was launched at Blackrock College RFC, where some members complained about the release of an "anti-rugby" book.[7]
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