Day School Teacher Writes Historical Novel for Students

Norman E. Day School students and parents might know Roger Whittlesey from the classroom, but in case you didn’t know, he’s also one of Westford’s newest authors.

His book, “Home to Oblivion” aims to bring history to life through the eyes of a young sailor in the Revolutionary War who finds himself trapped in time with a soldier from Vietnam and a World War I code breaker.

Over his 15 years at the Day School, Whittlesey continued to read the historical fiction his students were seeing and thought he could give them something better.

“I wasn’t seeing what I wanted in terms of history (combined) with philosophy and poetry, I wanted to see more of a hybrid,” he said. “No doubt about it that I wrote it for my students, I had them in mind.”

Whittlesey began to write the novel in 2004 and finished it about a year later. Although he soon heard back from a literary agent, he would soon have to find another after that agent unexpectedly moved to Egypt.

 During this time he tweaked the book, learning from industry insiders that Young Adult readers better relate to protagonists closer to their age.

However, the main character retained the name of “Prescott Fielding,” named after the historic Prescott family of Westford.

The book is now available at the Day School library and the J.V. Fletcher Library, as well as on Amazon.com

While it’s only sold about 50 copies so far, Whittlesey has been hearing positive reviews from his students and friends, and thinks the book can appeal to all ages, due in large part to the fact that while he intended to write the book for his students, once he started writing it, he let the plot flow without expectations.

“I think that boys will be interested in the book, but I’ve been getting feedback from adults saying that there are things intriguing to them and I’ve yet to find anybody that can guess the ending,” he said. “I don’t plot my books out,  I just started with an idea of a scene and started writing and let my mind bring me to the next step.”