Debate Rules takes the reader into the world of high school debate through the eyes of an outsider to it. In fact, it is through the eyes of someone who wants to destroy that world, which he sees as aberrant.Waldo Zhbryzhsky, known to his students and debaters as Dr Z, is caught between the two poles of his life: his love for putting words together in beautiful ways and his ability to multiply and divide. He drifts down in his confusion into teaching at a small Vermont high school, where he accidentally falls into being a debate coach. When four fabulous freshmen turn out for the team one year, he finally finds meaning in his life in the form of a crusade to destroy a style of debate, "spread," which offends his ear as having usurped beautiful thought and language in the art of debate. He decides on his Four Freshman as his weapon for vanquishing spread debate from Vermont-and beyond.The Four Freshmen: Tony, a sweet voice from the other side of the tracks. Sylvia, an academic star who, even as a freshmen, commands her own retinue of followers. Charles, never Charlie, who is black in the whitest state in the country. And beautiful, talented Leah, who seems to live to please.Things go awry with Dr Z's plans, as he explains in his own words one night to a former debater and an interested bartender. In his narrative, there is a sex tape, a potential murder, and a world that does not quite conform to his ideas of beauty and justice.