The Abstinence Teacher, by Tom Perrotta.
Niches are a fascinating subject to me. I like Tom Wolfe's idea of "statuspheres", and while my eyes glaze over whenever the subject of religion comes up, I do find the idea of a consumer oriented Evangelical sub-culture fascinating.
Tom Perrotta explores this subculture and how it interacts with the mainstream in his new novel, The Abstinence Teacher. A high school health teacher, Ruth Ramsey, has a run in with the local evangelical church over her sex education classes, and later falls in love with one of it's members, Tim Mason, who coaches her daughter's soccer team. Sex in the classroom and prayer on the soccer field light the fuse in this skirmish between the secular and the saintly. It has a narrower scope than his last novel, Little Children, but that isn't such a bad thing as it brings the dramatic conflict into focus.
Perrotta is a solid storyteller, but even harder, he is a brilliant humorist. Consider this exchange that occurs between a teacher and an administrator at a refresher course for recalcitrant sex-ed instructors:
Perrotta has a good ear for the rhythms of the school staffroom. One of his earlier novels, Election was the funniest work of fiction about the educational establishment since Doug Kenney and P.J. O'Rourke penned National Lampoon's 1964 High School Yearbook. It's safe territory for Perrotta as a writer, but he is still able to keep it fresh.
Christianity, on the other hand, is unfamiliar water for Perrotta, and he navigates these treacherous shoals with relative ease. Near the start of the novel, Perrotta handles the subject with kid gloves. The description of Pastor Dennis's conversion is humorous, but Perrotta finishs on a sympathetic note:
However, Perrotta doesn't airbrush his portrait of Christianity either:
It's a nice passage, because while it isn't bitter, it does make the trenchant observation that these churches are more about self-improvement than salvation. At times it's almost as if the church manages to fuse together the worst of the secular and the religious worlds.
Evelyn Waugh was a writer who straddled the border between the secular and the profane. Like Perrotta, his earlier efforts were strictly comic, but as time passed, Waugh dabbled in more "serious" works. Lately, Perrotta has been moving in a more serious direction, and while Little Children had it's moments of sunshine, it was on the whole a very sombre book. It's nice to see Perrotta using his comic touch to illuminate this particular tale about a clash of values in suburbia. There is nothing wrong with moving in a more serious direction, but in The Abstinence Teacher, Perrotta shows that he hasn't forgotten what made him a success in the first place.
Tom Perrotta explores this subculture and how it interacts with the mainstream in his new novel, The Abstinence Teacher. A high school health teacher, Ruth Ramsey, has a run in with the local evangelical church over her sex education classes, and later falls in love with one of it's members, Tim Mason, who coaches her daughter's soccer team. Sex in the classroom and prayer on the soccer field light the fuse in this skirmish between the secular and the saintly. It has a narrower scope than his last novel, Little Children, but that isn't such a bad thing as it brings the dramatic conflict into focus.
Perrotta is a solid storyteller, but even harder, he is a brilliant humorist. Consider this exchange that occurs between a teacher and an administrator at a refresher course for recalcitrant sex-ed instructors:
"One thing you might want to consider," JoAnn continued, as if C.J. hadn't spoken, "is encouraging parents in your communities to sponsor chaperoned after-parties in their homes. If you go to our website, you'll find a list of recommended group activities that'll help keep the kids out of trouble and restore some of the lost innocence back to prom night."
"Nude Twister," muttered Roger.
JoAnn stared at him in disbelief.
"How old are you?" she asked.
"Old enough not to give a crap," he replied.
"Ugh." JoAnn grimaced, as if she'd just swallowed something unpleasant. "I can't believe they let you teach children."
Perrotta has a good ear for the rhythms of the school staffroom. One of his earlier novels, Election was the funniest work of fiction about the educational establishment since Doug Kenney and P.J. O'Rourke penned National Lampoon's 1964 High School Yearbook. It's safe territory for Perrotta as a writer, but he is still able to keep it fresh.
Christianity, on the other hand, is unfamiliar water for Perrotta, and he navigates these treacherous shoals with relative ease. Near the start of the novel, Perrotta handles the subject with kid gloves. The description of Pastor Dennis's conversion is humorous, but Perrotta finishs on a sympathetic note:
Tim remembered seeing the grainy video on the TV news - he was going through his divorce at the time and was a long way from God - and thinking, "Big deal, the jerk had it coming to him," which he later realized, with a feeling of deep shame, was exactly what lots of "good" people must have thought two thousand years ago, watching a half-dead man getting whipped by soldiers as he dragged a wooden cross up a hill in the desert.
However, Perrotta doesn't airbrush his portrait of Christianity either:
It seemed like a glaring omission, considering that Jesus had a fair amount to say on other points of sexual morality, including one that was particularly inconvienent for Tim: "Anyone who divorces is wife and marries another woman commits adultery." You couldn't get much clearer than that, and yet Pastor Dennis hadn't objected to Tim's marriage to Carrie, far from it. He'd just let the whole remarriage-adultery thing slide, tempering God's harsh law with a dose of human compassion. Tim couldn't help feeling gay people deserved a similar break, a recognition that a choice between a life of sin and a life of celibacy was no choice at all.
It's a nice passage, because while it isn't bitter, it does make the trenchant observation that these churches are more about self-improvement than salvation. At times it's almost as if the church manages to fuse together the worst of the secular and the religious worlds.
Evelyn Waugh was a writer who straddled the border between the secular and the profane. Like Perrotta, his earlier efforts were strictly comic, but as time passed, Waugh dabbled in more "serious" works. Lately, Perrotta has been moving in a more serious direction, and while Little Children had it's moments of sunshine, it was on the whole a very sombre book. It's nice to see Perrotta using his comic touch to illuminate this particular tale about a clash of values in suburbia. There is nothing wrong with moving in a more serious direction, but in The Abstinence Teacher, Perrotta shows that he hasn't forgotten what made him a success in the first place.
Labels: Books, The Abstinence Teacher, Tom Perrotta
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