The Child: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Sarah Schulman (Author)
Key Phrases: breast doctor, gay kid, New York, Del Sol, Ilene Leopold (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The age of consent provides the flash point for Schulman's disturbing eighth novel (after 1998's Shimmer). The online activities of Stew Mulcahey—15, gay and troubled—lead him straight into the arms of David Ziemska, 39, and his lover, Joe. The two are subsequently arrested for child molestation. Schulman, a noted playwright and gay and lesbian rights activist, examines, with unflinching precision, the aftermath for Stew—his unhappy relationship with his family and the mental deterioration that leads to the senseless murder of Victor, Stew's young nephew. But if Stew is tried as an adult for murder, should the child molestation charge against David and Joe be dismissed? David's gay lawyer, Hockey Notkin, who's struggling with AIDS, turns for help to longtime friend and fellow lawyer, Eve Krasner, who's depressed, estranged from her partner and worried about cancer. Schulman crafts a piercing investigation into desire, mores and the law. (June)
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Review
"A well-researched, energetic, bitterly truthful novel...It is Schulman's ability to look pain in the eye and convert it to wisdom that the reader admires."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf (May 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786718668
• ISBN-13: 978-0786718665
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,008,935 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great approach to a controversial subject. , June 13, 2007

By	Bob Lind "camelwest" (Phoenix, AZ United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Stewie Mulcahey is a shy and troubled 15 year old gay boy from a dysfunctional home, who finds his only acceptance and comfort in the arms of David, a 39 year old man he met through an internet chat room. When his parents find out, Stewie is coerced by the police into testifying against the adult, although the boy insists he always initiated their contacts and was not forced into anything. His home life deteriorates further, with his parents and sister making it clear they want him out of the house, and they become upset when a social worker refuses to send him to a juvenile detention home. The situation escallates until an episode in which he is charged as an adult with murder in the death of his young nephew, whom they suspected him of molesting.



One of the two attorneys for David, the adult charged in the molestation, is Eva Krasner, who is simultaneously going through some tough times with his lover, Mary, and facing a possible health crisis. She is working with gay attorney Hockey Notkin, who seems a bit bitter and distracted since losing his lover to AIDS. They struggle with the dilemma of creating a defense for David without simultaneously pushing more of the blame on Stewie who, while he is not their client, they feel is more of a victim of his family's and the justice system's homophobia than anything else.



Sarah Schulman is a well-known lesbian writer who has a reputation for edgy works, and this is no exception. She tackles a difficult and controversial subject head on, but with a skillfully light touch that doesn't prejudge or challenge the opinions of the reader. The novel reads like a crime mystery, and catches the readers attention every step of the way.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Gay children need parents, too, and sometimes gay adults are the only ones who can give that kind of knowing love", July 18, 2007

By	D. Elliot "Son of Nietzsche" (UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The 'child' of the (ironic) title is Stew, a typical, lonely, 15 year old gay male living with his self-involved parents. He meets a gay male couple though the internet and starts building a full relationship (including sexual elements) with them. For a brief moment he believes that he has found happiness and acceptance - perhaps life is worth living after all? On the way back from a visit with them, he is the subject of a entrapment scene is a public toilet; arrested, he is taken to a police station whereupon he is manipulated into revealing where he had been. The gay couple are arrested on charges of 'child abuse', and Stew's nightmare begins:

"He was surrounded by walls, his family, the police. No one was flexible. No one had a reasonable explanation for their behavior, and no one had to."

A variety of characters and sub-plots populate this novel, with particular precedence given to Eva, a lesbian woman and a lawyer, who becomes involved in defending one of the partners in the gay couple detained on 'child abuse' charges. Indeed, the novel focuses not so much on the subsequent legal processes, but rather on the background cast of characters involved: Eva; her relationship with her partner Mary; Stew's family; the social worker assigned to Stew; and Hockey, an HIV+ lawyer working alongside Eva. This broader perspective enables the author to capture her primary theme: exposing the delusions that individuals create in order to satisfy their own egoistic desires.

Consequently, the various characters' façades are stripped away, and the author presents a myriad of iconoclastic images: the child who is not merely 'a child' but a human, with rights and desires; the parents whose 'love' for their child is instead a need to propagate their own sense of self-worth; the child welfare infrastructure that does not genuinely care about the child; the lesbian social activist who desires love more than a successful outcome; the law enforcement officers whose hatred of their perceived enemy far eclipses any professed concern for the child's well-being; the HIV+ lawyer who is unsympathetic to any hint of weakness in others; the judicial system that allows a young male to bear criminal responsibility for his actions but denies him the right to love freely.

Clearly this perspective will be unsettling to readers unused to confronting the darker reality of life. Nevertheless - and indeed, for this reason - the novel deserves the broadest possible audience. 'The Child' is an important work; as with Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', it is concerned to challenge the cozy self/group delusions that mainstream society most desires to cherish - and accordingly serves as a courageous assertion of independent writing, which is all-too-often suppressed in favor of promulgating society's false idealism. Sarah Schulman's novel is written with fluid, fearless originality, and is highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No country for old men, but they're running things anyway..., June 9, 2008

By	John Labella (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you know who Procrustes was, and what "procrustean" means, then you'll be at home in this book. That mythical character is alive and well, but his modus operandi has changed since Greek times: now s/he's the person who asks "Can't we all just get along together?" when what s/he really means is, "Why aren't you more like me and how can I force you to become so without being perceived as a monster?"

This novel is part of a line of great works of art that show, in very entertaining terms, how individuals are often destroyed by the helping systems that are supposed to protect them. I think of "The Consul" by Gian Carlo Menotti as a similarly great work with the same timely overarching theme. This is not to say that if you loved Menotti's "The Consul", you'll love Schulman's book - but you *might* if you are willing to re-read the book until you 'get it'.

About the humor: Wonderful! but I missed a lot of it at first read because there are so many other things that grabbed my attention. Examples: Eva's riffs on voice mail systems at large companies; and there are screamingly funny sentences all throughout the book, one being something like 'I can't believe f****** Michele disconnected me!' (Michele being a sour and uninformed operator at some unnamed company.) Some writers would get a chuckle out of such a line; the way Schulman writes, it is so beautifully set up that I laughed, in pain, out loud, on the subway, for a long time. People were suspicious: "What is wrong with that man that he is laughing in public in front of strangers."

How can something so humiliating feel so cathartic?

"The Child" is rooted in a set of Gay/Lesbian experience that seems pretty common to me, so "What happens next, and Why" made total sense. That said, Schulman has a whole cosmology that some people won't get at first, even if they're headed in the same direction already. For me, her books feel more insightful as I get older, so maybe they will for you, too. Throughout this book, people throw in the towel in different ways - and only a few of them move forward again. If you care about sex in America in any way, her books are worthwhile reading. DISCLAIMER: This being American, I need to make it clear that I have contempt for pedophiles and that this book did not make me more sympathetic to them. What it did make me realize is that media stories about them are simplified so that they lose all connection to reality and, as a result of that, we as a society lose all hope of addressing the outcomes. That's partly why we in such dire straits as a country.