Ruth Ramsey has been teaching Health and Family Life (Sex Education) to teenagers for more than ten years. Her credo is: "Pleasure is Good, Shame is Bad, and Knowledge is Power." She tries to demystify sex by giving her students the information they need to live fulfilling and healthful lives. Unfortunately, some candid remarks that she makes in class offend a student whose parents worship in an evangelical congregation. Ruth's open and frank approach to sexuality is incompatible with the Christian family values that have taken root in the increasingly conservative "sleepy bedroom community" of Stonewood Heights. Ruth's supervisors insist that she adopt a new curriculum in which abstinence, rather than safe sex, is promoted.
In "The Abstinence Teacher," Tom Perrotta focuses his analytical and satirical eye on the mores of suburban life, with a fresh and timely twist: How does a community react when fundamentalist Christians try to impose their views on their fellow residents? When soccer coach Tim Mason prays with his team after a game, Ruth, whose daughter Maggie is a star player, is enraged. How dare anyone try to brainwash her daughter? Mason is a musician, former addict, and recovering alcoholic who found salvation in the Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth, presided over by Pastor Dennis; Tim now lives a staid life with his submissive wife, Carrie. Dennis is elated that Tim is proselytizing among young people; however, some townspeople contend that it is inappropriate to conduct prayer sessions with impressionable teenagers without parental approval. Stonewood Heights is about to experience a confrontation in which ardent churchgoers, who are anti-evolution, pro-censorship, and against what they perceive to be "godlessness and moral decay," clash with those who cherish their right to reject religion.
Perrotta's central characters are flawed and vulnerable individuals. Ruth is intensely lonely. In spite of the fact that she is a forty-something woman who is still attractive, she has not had a long-term romantic relationship since her divorce. Mason left behind years of earthly pleasures and debauchery to embrace a restrictive lifestyle that, so far, has helped him stay clean and sober. Unfortunately, he is bored with Carrie, and he harbors lustful feelings for his ex-wife, Allison. He is also beginning to question whether he can continue adhering to the Tabernacle's stringent code of behavior. Although he is tempted to start drinking again, he fears that going down that road will undo everything that he has worked so hard to achieve. Above all, Tim is determined not to jeopardize the fragile relationship that he has developed with his daughter, Abby. Although Tim and Ruth argue bitterly over his insistence that praying with his team after a soccer game is no big deal, the two have an undeniable chemistry between them. Can they reach across their religious divide to find common ground?
Ruth's witty gay friends, Randall and Gregory, alas, are pure stereotypes. Randall is "a cultured gay man, an opera-loving dandy with a fetish for Italian designer eyewear." "[He] set his cup down on the Wonder woman coaster he kept on his desk, next to an autographed picture of Maria Callas." Randall and Gregory freely dispense advice to Ruth while they squabble about their own troubled relationship. With them, Ruth feels comfortable enough to reveal her most embarrassing thoughts and feelings. Another hackneyed portrayal is that of twenty-eight year old JoAnn Marlow, a smug and condescending visitor to Ruth's high school who boasts that she is a virgin who "can look myself in the mirror and honestly say that my mind and body are one hundred percent intact." She is there to convince the students that they need to arm themselves against a toxic culture by rejecting premarital sex.
To his credit, Perrotta offers no pat answers to the provocative questions that he raises: What influence is evangelical Christianity exerting on American society? Can a person who has lived solely for instant gratification successfully adjust to a conformist and traditional lifestyle? How can a teacher who has taught youngsters to enjoy safe sex bring herself to disseminate what she considers to be misinformation? Perrotta is a clear-eyed and dispassionate observer who skillfully addresses these and other controversial and emotionally charged issues. In a key scene, Tim attends a gathering of the "Faith Keepers," an organization that is devoted to winning "a historic battle in the ongoing war for the hearts and minds of our children." In the hands of a lesser writer, this scene could have been a laughable display of out-of-control zealotry. Instead, Perrotta depicts the men who attend the convocation as mostly regular guys seeking stability and peace of mind through membership in a close-knit religious and social group. "The Abstinence Teacher" is a sharp, fast-paced, tightly focused, humorous, and involving story that works on two levels: It is a thought-provoking novel about social mores in modern suburbia and the ways in which each of us tries to find happiness and fulfillment without sacrificing our most cherished ideals.
