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The Abstinence Teacher Tom Perrotta Books

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The Abstinence Teacher Tom Perrotta Books

Fun read, interesting subject matter. I read this in one sitting, which makes it clear that the plot kept me interested. On the other hand, I'm never soul-satisfied without a greater level of character development. The two strands that most interested me were (1) the story line about the committed, experienced sex-ed teacher who's suddenly forced, as a result of school board politics, to teach abstinence-only and (2) the more slowly emerging connection between this woman and another parent who ostensibly have radically different views and positions but who both have a more subtle side that lets them take in realities that are more complex than their world views might suggest. So - a good read, well-written, not necessarily a masterpiece - hence, the three solid stars.


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The Abstinence Teacher Tom Perrotta Books Reviews

Mr. Perrotta's "The Abstinence Teacher" is a character study about two people coming from quite different perspectives. Ruth Ramsey is a sex education teacher struggling with a vocal group of religious citizens who are hellbent on forcing the school to teach an abstinence-only program. The author's sympathies clearly lie with Ms. Ramsey's philosophy. Keeping kids ignorant about sexuality and spreading fallacies about contraception and masturbation is a dangerous and illogical strategy. This seems pretty obvious to me but, hey, I'm agnostic. However, aaaaah, we are also dealing with religious zealots here. The second main character, Tim Mason, is a more troubled, conflicted person who unintentionally causes problems during an 11-year-old, girl soccer game which he coaches. Instead of portraying Tim Mason as a one-dimensional, religious foil to Ms. Ramsey, the author goes to pains in describing why Mason became born-again. I found the two main characters to be funny but somewhat annoying. Tim Mason's confusion and lack of spine might have seemed necessary for him to fall into the web of pinhead Pastor Dennis' little, religious clique, but it got old after awhile. The story swirls around what should be the boundaries for religion and sexual education when they fall into the public venue? Regrettably, the story never resolves itself to a satisfying conclusion. You're just hanging there at the end wondering what's next for Ruth Ramsey and Tim Mason? I enjoyed the novel but felt short-changed with its conclusion. There will probably be a few, frustrated readers who will chuck this baby across the room when they get to the end of it.
I picked up The Abstinence Teacher after seeing it on one of the earlier NY Times Notable Books of the Year lists. I wasn't totally blown away by the book but found it enjoyable enough where I would likely pick up something else by Tom Perrotta. I have also come to the conclusion after reading it that Perrotta is sort of the Christian Jodi Picoult. If you like Picoult's writing you probably will like what Perrotta has to offer as well as they write in a similar matter of fact style with a deeper than normal look into the lives of the main characters. The book centers around two interesting characters--Ruth and Tim. Ruth is a sex education teacher at a local high school who one could say is extremely literal and detailed in her profession. When kids ask questions, she gives answers and she doesn't hold back much to the dismay of many in the increasingly right-wing Christian influenced community. Tim is the local soccer coach. He coaches both his daughter and Ruth's daughter on the team and he himself has had an interesting background coming from being a washed up junkie to finding God, marrying someone he probably doesn't love, and becoming close with the local church. Ruth and Tim become closer and closer and the story culminates with both Ruth and Tim making some significant decisions that change both of their lives and that of their families. The book is a quick read albeit maybe 50 pages too long in my opinion. I enjoyed it moderately and would recommend it to anyone looking for an enjoyable weekend read.
This is pretty typical Tom Perrotta dark satire of American suburbia. He showed his usual insight into the social mores and expectations of this particular subculture – he has an eye for things like the rituals of the fruit slices at the weekend morning soccer games, the little mini-scandals and parent phone trees, the overwhelming sense of entitlement. The book on the whole is a very readable exploration through its two main characters, Ruth and Tim, of the desperation of entering middle age in the suburbs with the feeling that everything good is done and in the past and that your best days are behind you, of thirsting for the chance to start all over again.

The title, as it turns out, refers not just to Ruth Ramsey’s job as she is forced into teaching an abstinence-only sex ed curriculum, but the theme of what it means and what it does to someone to abstain from (whether by choice or not) meeting one’s needs and desires – for sex and love in both of their cases, for professional satisfaction (whether that be psychic satisfaction in Ruth’s case or success in Tim’s), for meaning, for connection with their kids, and in Tim’s case from indulging in his most self-destructive impulses.

I thought Perrotta did a good job drawing out the parallels with these two characters, who start off from such very, very different places on the surface and are inevitably (although realistically and not in grand romantic fashion) drawn to each other in spite of the divide between them. There are a lot of mirror images between them – Ruth’s forced celibacy and desire for someone to end her loneliness and Tim’s chosen celibacy and desire for someone who he can actually share a life with; Tim desperately wanting to connect with his daughter and bring her to the church and Ruth’s confusion and frustration at not being able to connect with her daughters over their desire to find religion, both of their having to go through the motions of professing faith in messages they don’t really believe, their need for second (and in Tim’s case third) chances at lives that seem pretty well screwed up beyond repair. You can actually see where these two, beyond rule of lead characters, would have common ground.

This is very much a product of the second Bush Administration – one could easily date it to 2007 even if you didn’t know that was the publishing date, just from the discussion of the real estate and mortgage industries (and the discussion of Randall and Gregory's marriage prospects) alone. But along with the deeper thematic resonances, it’s also Perrotta’s examination of the phenomenon of the spread of evangelical Christianity that marked that era. I thought he did a pretty good job, at least to my perspective as someone who stands apart from and is wary of that movement (and I suspect given his writing that Perrotta’s views on this are close to mine) of exploring it fairly, both in its deep flaws and in examining what exactly would be appealing about it in the American suburban subculture. He does not hesitate to credit it for helping Tim beat his addiction, for providing a sense of love and community and fulfillment and acceptance in a place and time where spiritual emptiness ruled – things that Ruth in particular seems to lack. One can genuinely see how not just a drug addict who needs the opportunity to start over but just anyone confronting the oh-so-common question of “is this really all there is? Is this really all I’m getting in life?” would want to be involved, and want to stay involved. You can see how it might fill the empty spaces for Dennis and Carrie and John, and in a healthy way. He also adroitly describes the divide between upbringings in Christian and secular America as being like two different countries, and Tim’s marriage to Carrie being like him go as a tourist to a foreign land and deciding to stay, along with the sheer loathing and contempt people on either side of this divide have for each other.

But Perrotta doesn’t let the evangelical Christianity movement off the hook for its darker, more frightening qualities, and it’s fairly clear the reader is supposed to (and does) sympathize with Ruth and the other teachers’ fury at having to disseminate so much misinformation, and be angered by the cruelty of what their beliefs mean for the gay community and so many others.

Finally, this is very much a book about sex and the way we talk and think about it in this culture, the way it impacts individual lives and our politics, the way it drives all of us and shapes our relationships, its power and why some people feel such a need to try to restrain that power.

Perrotta managed the tough job of wrapping all of this into an extremely funny package, making a very readable novel starring two characters who it’s easy to empathize with.
Fun read, interesting subject matter. I read this in one sitting, which makes it clear that the plot kept me interested. On the other hand, I'm never soul-satisfied without a greater level of character development. The two strands that most interested me were (1) the story line about the committed, experienced sex-ed teacher who's suddenly forced, as a result of school board politics, to teach abstinence-only and (2) the more slowly emerging connection between this woman and another parent who ostensibly have radically different views and positions but who both have a more subtle side that lets them take in realities that are more complex than their world views might suggest. So - a good read, well-written, not necessarily a masterpiece - hence, the three solid stars.