Although I didn't fall in love with Tom Perrotta's The Abstinence Teacher, I did enjoy it—thoroughly. The main character, Ruth, is a high school sex education teacher in a community recently taken over by uber-moralistic Christians. Her description: "A small evangelical church—The Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth—led by a fiery young preacher known as Pastor Dennis, had begun a crusade to cleanse Stonewood Heights of all manner of godlessness and moral decay, as if this sleepy bedroom community was an abomination unto the Lord, Sodom with good schools and a twenty-four-hour supermarket." (pages 12-13) In other words, a novel based on events happening all across our country today. And a really cool analogy.
Analogy aside, I think the immediacy of Tom Perrotta's novels is why I like him. A few years ago I read his Joe College and liked it enough to go back and read his earlier works. A little over a year ago he made it into my writers-to-be-bought-in-hardback category with Little Children. I like The Abstinence Teacher better than the earlier works, probably because of the subject matter. A minor problem might be that beyond Ruth, Tim—a now-saved but used-to-be druggie, alcoholic, womanizer—and a gay couple, the characters aren't terribly dimensional. But maybe they don't need to be. They represent different issues at which the novel pokes fun, and if they were more fully developed, humor would be lost—IMHO.
Of course there are dog-eared pages. I'm always amazed at how writers can express some thoughts so well.
1) School starts for the year, and Ruth, forced to follow the dictates of the new powers that be, writes "THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SAFE SEX" on the blackboard. She then mentally makes a comparison. "There was no such thing as risk-free automobile travel, either, but we didn't teach our kids to stay out of cars. We taught them defensive driving skills and told them a million times to wear their seat belts, because driving was an important of life, and everyone needed to learn how to do it as safely as possible." (page 153) It's a good analogy IMHO. If pro sex education folk haven't used it, they should.
2) Ruth attends one of her daughters' soccer games where Tim, in an impulsive moment, leads the team in prayer after a victory. "Until she'd seen those girls, those beautiful young athletes, sitting on the grass in the sunshine, being coerced by adults they trusted into praying to the God of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the Republican Party—the God of War and Abstinence and Shame and Willful Ignorance, the God Who Loved Everyone Except the Homosexuals, Who Sent Good People to Hell if They Didn't Believe in Him, and Let Murderers and Child Rapists into Heaven if They Did, the God Who Made Women as an Afterthought, and Then Cursed Them with the Pain of Childbirth, the God Who Would Have Never Let Girls Play Soccer in the First Place if It Had Been up to Him …" (page 161) James Spader on Boston Legal couldn't have said it better—and Tom Perrotta got to use all those Neat Capital Letters for Emphasis.
3) Ruth ruminates on the fact that due to the diet preferences of her daughters, dinner always wound up being grilled chicken, a vegetable, and a salad with Paul Newman dressing. She was tired of it. "Even Paul Newman was starting to get on her nerves, the smug way he grinned at her from the bottle, as if he knew all too well that he was the only man at the dinner table." (page 173) Made me smile.
4) Tim decides not to go into a bar called the Brew-Ha-Ha, and that made me wonder about writers' imaginations. Did Perrotta make up that name or is there somewhere a bar so named? I've used a bar called Mable's Chain Saw Repair and Beauty Shop, and it gets a laugh—but I didn't make it up. A friend told me he stops in MCSRABS when he visits Birmingham. Part of me really hopes Perrotta didn't make up Brew-Ha-Ha. It's perfect, IMHO, and if coming up with such a clever name for a place is a test for a writer, I'll never pass.
A final thought: this one sort of reminded me of Charles Dickens's novels, not in the length or detail (let's face it; writers are no longer paid by the word) but in the groups of characters who mingle, crossing in and out of the groups to which they belong. The book had a "Dicksonian" feel.
