"The Abstinence Teacher" - Commentary - Eric Shapiro 1-15-10
Any reasonably well-known writer who takes on the challenge of writing a novel about as controversial and inflammatory a subject as sex education in America is bound to grab some headlines and sell some copies. Easy answers and pat messages make the author seem polemical and, if he goes too far, egotistical. To his credit, Tom Perrotta avoids this pitfall in The Abstinence Teacher. He strikes a detached, non-judgmental tone, devoting roughly equal time to both “sides” of the debate over sex education and, more broadly, religious and secular worldviews. The novel’s plot revolves around the characters of Ruth Ramsey and Tim Mason. True to his most impressive and consistent talent, Perrotta develops both characters into complex, deeply troubled individuals that have no trouble earning the readers sympathy. It is therefore all the more disappointing that the world they inhabit is not so well portrayed. Try as he might, Perrotta proves unable, or perhaps unwilling, to deliver a meaningful exploration of faith and sexuality in America, which is what The Abstinence Teacher is ostensibly supposed to be. What we are left with, then, is a reasonably engaging character study about a man and a woman with drastically different views and life stories who, due to feelings of intense loneliness, gravitate towards each other.
At the beginning of the novel, Ruth Ramsey, a sex education teacher in a generic suburban high school, is in the process of being raked over the coals by her community’s burgeoning evangelical community for informing her students, in response to a booby-trapped query, that some people happen to enjoy oral sex. True to life, the local churches take advantage of her gaffe to raise a ruckus about the filth being peddled to impressionable students in the guise of education. Although Ramsey is fortunate enough to keep her job (via tenure), it is not long before the well-mobilized forces of Christian morality pressure the school system into switching over to an abstinence-only curriculum, equipped with all manner of “deterrents,” ranging from gruesome slideshows of STDs to a hot spokeswoman (not to mention abstinence practitioner) to tell horror stories about disastrous sexual encounters and extol the virtues of staying chaste. Scapegoated by her community’s conservative elements and with all potential allies cowed into silence, Ruth goes into all out defensive-bitch mode. She finds a convenient target for her rage in her daughter’s soccer coach, Tim, a rock n’ roll-loving former-druggy/alcoholic turned born-again-Christian who, in his enthusiasm over his team’s victory, makes the mistake of inciting the students to thank the Lord.
Plotwise, what follows is a series of sexually-tinged encounters between Ruth and Tim that end in, well, nothing sexual. The flashbacks and introspective rambling are where the action is at, for the most part.
By the end of the novel, it is clear that Perrota is heading towards a narrative brick wall. He can’t crash headlong into cliché by ending the novel with Ruth and Tim getting together, despite the fact that his underdeveloped plot seems to mandate such a conclusion. So he takes the David Chase approach and cuts to a blank screen. Unlike "The Sopranos," however, The Abstinence Teacher doesn’t leave viewers with much to think about. Yeah, there’s the question of whether Ruth and Tim will make it as a couple. Still, for a respected author who clearly had higher ambitions than writing a romance novel, this is a sloppy, disappointing conclusion.