The Abstinence Teacher

“Perrotta is that rare combination: a satirist with heart….Those who haven’t curled up on the couch with this writer’s books are missing a very great pleasure.”—SeattleTimes

Stonewood Heights is the perfect place to raise children: it’s got good schools, solid values and a healthy real estate market.  Parents in the town are involved in their children’s lives, and often in other children’s lives, more >>

“Perrotta is that rare combination: a satirist with heart….Those who haven’t curled up on the couch with this writer’s books are missing a very great pleasure.”—SeattleTimes

Stonewood Heights is the perfect place to raise children: it’s got good schools, solid values and a healthy real estate market.  Parents in the town are involved in their children’s lives, and often in other children’s lives, too—coaching sports, driving carpool, focusing on enriching experiences.  Ruth Ramsey is the high school human sexuality teacher whose openness is not appreciated by all her students—or their parents.  Her daughter’s soccer coach is Tim Mason, a former stoner and rocker whose response to hitting rock bottom was to reach out and be saved.  Tim’s introduction of Christianity on the playing field horrifies Ruth, while his evangelical church sees a useful target in the loose-lipped sex ed teacher.  But when these two adversaries in a small-town culture war actually talk to each other, a surprising friendship begins to develop.

“Nobody renders the world of soccer moms and sprinklers and SUVs like Perrotta. He’s the Steinbeck of suburbia.”—Time

“Tom Perrotta is a truth-telling, unshowy chronicler of modern-day America.”—The NewYork Times Book Review(in a front-page review)

The Abstinence Teacherilluminates the powerful emotions that run beneath the placid surface of modern American family life, and explores the complicated spiritual and sexual lives of ordinary people. It is elegantly and simply written, characterized by the distinctive mix of satire and compassion that has become Perrotta’s trademark.

Tom Perrotta is the author of five previous works of fiction:Bad Haircut,The Wishbones,Election, and theNew York TimesbestsellersJoeCollegeandLittle Children. Electionwas made into the acclaimed movie directed by Alexander Payne and starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick.  Perrotta was nominated for an Academy Award for the screenplay for the movie version ofLittle Children, which was directed by Todd Field and starred Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connelly.  Perrotta lives with his family outside Boston, Massachusetts.

Chapter 1
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—not that she was going on a lot of dates these days—let alone to work. It was a small act of rebellion on her part, a note to self—and anyone else who cared—that she was not a willing participant in the farce that would unfold later that morning in second-period Health & Family Life.
On the way to homeroom, Ruth stopped by the library to deliver the grande nonfat latte she regularly picked up for Randall, the Reference Librarian, a fellow caffeine junkie who returned the favor by making the midday Starbucks run. The two of them had bonded several years earlier over their shared revulsion for what Randall charmingly called the “warmed-over Maxwell Piss” in the Teacher’s Lounge, and their willingness to spend outlandish sums of money to avoid it.
Randall kept his eyes glued to the computer screen as she approached. A stranger might have mistaken him for a dedicated Information Sciences professional getting an early start on some important research, but Ruth knew that he was actually scouring eBay for vintage Hasbro action figures, a task he performed several times a day. Randall’s partner, Gregory, was a successful real-estate broker and part-time artist who << less