false 347143 18 <i>“Some people enjoy it.” That was all Ruth had said. Even now, when she’d had months to come to terms with the fallout from this remark, she still marveled at the power of those four words, which she’d uttered without premeditation and without any sense of treading on forbidden ground. (p. 11)</I> Thanks to an off-hand remark made during a class discussion of oral sex, sex-ed teacher Ruth Ramsey finds herself a target of the Christian evangelicals who are increasingly influencing the schoolboard of suburban Stonewood Heights. Forced to attend remedial sessions with a smug “Virginity Consultant,” Ruth is isolated and alone, caught in the polarized red-versus-blue landscape of present-day American suburbia. It’s like “living in a horror movie,” she thinks, “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or something. You never knew who they were going to get to next.” Divorced and sharing custody of her daughters with her ex, and sometimes attempting a futile date, Ruth spends many a lonely weekend wondering how her bleak existence came to be. Then one morning at her daughter’s soccer game, Ruth meets Tim Mason, a cute forty-something volunteer coach. Ruth feels an instant attraction to Tim, but when he draws the girls together for a spontaneous prayer circle after the game, she angrily yanks her daughter away from the proceedings, placing herself once again in the sights of the evangelicals. But Ruth has another unexpected problem: she can’t seem to get a handle on Tim, her supposed adversary, who keeps appearing at her front door. A recovering addict whose bottoming-out cost him his home and his marriage, Tim found his way to the Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth through the intervention of Pastor Dennis, the charismatic preacher who put Tim’s shattered life back together in an approximation of happiness. Thanks to Pastor Dennis, Tim is now married to Carrie, a fellow Tabernacler who is attractive and attentive, if robotic. He plays guitar at the weekly prayer sessions in a sanitized reenactment of his days in a Grateful Dead cover band. He holds a respectable if unfulfilling job as a loan officer, well aware of the irony of the post for a man with his history. He is grateful for the help he has received from his church community and Pastor Dennis. But he can’t shake the yearning for something more, and a nagging attraction to that troublesome sex-ed teacher.... With <i>The Abstinence Teacher</I>, Tom Perrotta wades into the murky waters of contemporary American suburbia, fully deploying his proven gift for describing the panic lurking beneath its seemingly placid surface. Already widely known to book and movie audiences for his scathing satire mixed with remarkable compassion in works including <i>Election</I> and <i>Little Children</I> (both adapted for film, <i>Little Children</I> garnering Perrotta an Oscar nomination), this novel once again proves, as declared by the Los Angeles Times, “Perrotta’s balance of humor and pathos has no equal.” 2299471 16 10 2007 The Abstinence Teacher total:5107|5:363|4:1722|3:1989|2:823|1:210| 5107 16526 7305 1247 1 34 false false Wed Feb 25 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 24 22:56:47 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 25 08:00:47 -0800 2009 JESUS WANTS YOU ........ TO GROW A PAIR.

Tommy, Tommy, Tommy! How did such a promising young literary stud like yourself turn out to be such an emasculated whore? When did things start to go so horribly, horribly wrong?

Let me be clear. When I picked you up at the airport in ...more...]]> 2 13 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 07 08:25:43 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 07 09:06:52 -0800 2008
As I've mentioned here a couple of times before, I've recently become a fairly big fan of movie-friendly aut...more...]]> 3 6 false false Thu Aug 07 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 28 20:19:46 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 07 21:06:20 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 5 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 13 16:53:32 -0800 2007 Tue Nov 13 16:55:20 -0800 2007
I went to the theater but it was packed, so I opted out, went to a coffee shop and read Perrotta's book, which I finished thi...more...]]> 5 4 false false Tue Feb 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 02 15:12:07 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 03 14:22:29 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 3 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 29 14:46:07 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 06 19:21:17 -0800 2007
I'm rather Tom Perrotta-obsessed. I've been known to babble on about him...over and over and over again.

I was really excited for this book to come out. I loved the concept of Ruth, a Human Sexuality teacher, being called into question for something innocent, a casual rem...more...]]> 4 2 false false Thu Aug 21 20:28:10 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 21 20:28:49 -0700 2008
Tom Perrotta and I have two things in common: New Jersey roots and novels about sex education; his latest work, The Abstinence Teacher is the only other novel, besides my own, The Sex Ed Chronicles, that I have read which covers a subject ...more...]]> 3 2 false false Sat Jul 05 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 05 18:19:09 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 05 22:49:14 -0700 2008
Perrotta tries his best to pr...more...]]> 2 2 false false Wed May 07 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 25 10:08:17 -0700 2008 Thu May 08 09:09:42 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat May 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Mar 23 07:31:05 -0700 2008 Sun May 11 18:33:58 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 2 false false Thu Jan 31 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Oct 19 07:26:05 -0700 2007 Thu Jan 31 09:17:59 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Mon Mar 09 09:21:10 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 04 09:18:00 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 09 09:21:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false true Sat Jul 26 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 15 15:37:58 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 26 10:17:33 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 2 false false Thu Jul 17 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 08 11:24:53 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 18 09:23:41 -0700 2008
Where I am now: characters are stock characters, so am assuming the point is not character or character development, but some larger point about our culture and its issue...more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Jun 11 18:01:26 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 09 09:56:41 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 11 18:01:26 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Dec 09 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat May 24 15:26:42 -0700 2008 Sun May 25 09:23:44 -0700 2008 but Ruth knew that he was actually scouring eBay for vintage Hasbro action figures, a task he preformed several times a day."
(wilely creatur...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun May 25 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 05 18:03:05 -0800 2008 Sun May 25 18:10:44 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false true Tue Feb 12 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 12 05:13:42 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 12 05:44:03 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 16 06:26:54 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 24 07:20:04 -0800 2008
I absolutely love shifting points of view, most especially when the writer does it so deftly that we gain important details about characters through others' observations. This is especially present in Tim's observations of Ruth and vice versa.
...more...]]> 2 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 10 17:35:29 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 14 16:39:01 -0800 2008 more...]]>