Have to make this one quick because I got back from Wisconsin at 5, only to find out that Beardilocks, who will be staying with my grandparents, left his suitcase in Bellwood and now they expect me to drive it up to Big Run.  So I'm back...but only after some near death experiences....


But, with the aid of books, I was able to make it a good journey.  400 pages worth of reading isn't bad.  Well, it looks like it's back to the highways and byways of life...and here I was hoping to avoid driving for the rest of the evening.  But I am back and alive--at least for now.  However, a Red Mage's work is never done.  Time to restock the iPod (thanks, otakumeep!) and get going!

I'm not sure if I'll get to end this series of posts in the airport tomorrow or not...so consider this a preemptive conclusion, maybe with a few final reflections to appear tomorrow evening.  I feel almost like I've become the new fivesecondsago, what with these nightly posts and all.  Speaking of which--5SA, are you still alive?  I have missed your comments, your posts, the unfolding saga that is your life!  I pray that all is going well for you.


It'll be good to get back to PA and get some work done.  I've done plenty of reading, but it's time to get back to work, attend to some unfinished matters, get things moving again.  I'm looking forward to the opportunity to write.

Behold, the power of hotel wifi.  And the power of smuggling my laptop out of the house.  And the power of a wireless radio that picks up signal from the nearby residential area...that's several blocks away.  G41--that's my Lappy--she'll take down anybody else's wireless radio.  Because of all these fortuitous things, you all can expect some lovely posts about my ventures in Wisconsin.  The posts will be lovely; the ventures may not be.  Now, with no further ado...


Also, I've been listening to a lot of Billy Joel recently.  I highly recommend that everybody listen to "An Innocent Man."  It's an amazing song.  In traditional Dr. Black Jeans fashion, I'll just...leave it that.

The Abstinence Teacher
Tom Perrotta
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007. 358 pp. $24.95/hardcover

    Somebody should stamp the words “Made for TV” in bright red letters on the covers of Tom Perrotta’s books.
    Perrotta’s work has appeared on screen several times previously; his short story Bad Haircut and his novels Election and Little Children have been adapted into films. The writing of The Abstinence Teacher suggests that his most recent book will not abstain from intimating its storyline on the silver screen.
    The novel works in alternating scenes within chapters, which are combined into four different parts. Perrotta’s structuring of the book shows the conception of a screenplay: Quick scenes no longer than a page-and-a-half introduce the central characters, and there is little time for thought. The greatest plunges into character occur through observation, as Perrotta demonstrates in the novel’s first lines: “On the first day of human sexuality, Ruth Ramsey wore a short lime green skirt, a clingy black top, and strappy high-heeled sandals, the kind of attention-getting outfit she normally wouldn’t have worn on a date….”
    Cinematic images like Ruth’s attire penetrate the novel time and again. Ruth, a divorcee and a sex education teacher at Stonewood Heights, combats the town’s increasing conservatism, roused by the Tabernacle church’s clout. Parent complaints install an abstinence-only curriculum, spearheaded by the Wise Choices for Teens program under the direction of Joann Marlow, a young woman who “wasn’t just blond and pretty; she was hot, and she knew it.” And Ruth isn’t that bad to look at either: She reunites with a former high school fling, who tells Ruth, “You’re a sexy woman.”
    Tom Perrotta has sent enough invitations to an orgy of beautiful people to classify The Abstinence Teacher as an A-list blockbuster. And then the novel degrades into a series of clichés that only the silver screen could justify. Ruth watches her daughter’s soccer game and encounters Tim Mason, who of course coaches the girls’ soccer team while being a remarried divorcee, a former rock and roll musician, a reformed drug and alcohol addict, a loan officer with bad credit, and a member of the Tabernacle church and the bassist in its praise-and-worship band. Tom Perrotta discovered a potential conflict worthy of a Lifetime miniseries.
    This would be a noteworthy novel if Ruth did not fight the religious right and then fall in love at first sight with Tim, if Tim did not turn his back to his reformation and his protestation of his former life. From Ruth’s first encounter with Tim, Perrotta provides cues that she will, ultimately and pitifully, end up with him: “It was embarrassing, she understood that, pining for your daughter’s married soccer coach—oh, she’d checked for the ring; she always checked for the ring—possibly a new low.”
    But Ruth must feel this way, and when the novel concludes, we must see that “Tim’s Saturn was parked right in front of Ruth’s house, beneath the sugar maple.” That is because, in all likelihood, The Abstinence Teacher will become a screenplay. Perrotta structures his cinematic novel with jumps from Ruth’s perspective to Tim’s. Perrotta directs his characters believably, provided their careers and circumstances, but the panning of the narrative—from Ruth to Tim, back and forth—shakes the novel out of focus. These sequences—which could take only several minutes on screen—span dozens of pages, and the audience is likely to forget that there are two protagonists. The acting is superb, but Perrotta needs some help with editing.