Books: 'Tampa'

My interest in this novel was first roused by a Guardian article about how this book was the most controversial of the year. They had me at controversial. The story is based on a string of familiar tales that bubbled to the surface some years ago about young, sexy, female high school teachers who had had affairs with their male, teenage students. These stories arose with an expected disgust, but an odd undertone of support in the sense of “Naughty, naughty, tut, tut, but look aren’t they gorgeous, who could blame those kids”. Exactly: kids. These young boys were not headed towards adulthood, not senior high schoolers, but kids, as young as 12 years old. Some of the women saw jail time, but compared to 30 year sentences that male teachers might be expected to receive, prison was from a handful of years, to time served, or even house arrest and probation (and the latter through plea bargains no less).

Alyssa Nutting in fact covers the story closest to that of Deborah Lafavre. Lafavre was a drop dead gorgeous, sexy, blonde, married high school teacher in her mid-20s from Florida, who seduced and carried out sexual liaisons with a 14 year old student. In Tampa, Lafavre’s image is reflected in that of Celeste, who upon starting her new teaching gig is in fact prowling for new prey. We are introduced to Celeste, not as someone who without warning falls hard for a student she finds a special, irresistible, connection with, but an unexposed paedophile desperate to find her next conquest. She has specific requirements about what her pick should be like: specifically 14 years of age; specifically inexperienced; specifically easy to control and ensure they can be trusted to keep a secret.

Celeste’s experience of such illicit trysts are further hinted at not just with her meticulously planned selection process, but also in the detail of which she plans where such trysts will take place, every possible trail that could lead to exposure and her explicit hopes and desires of being pleasured by young males.

On that note, the book is very much explicit, no doubt hitting a nerve with readers deeming the novel controversial. Yet unlike popular fiction such as 50 Shades of Grey, Tampa uses this explicit content by no means to titillate, but with the simple purpose of challenging our perception and understanding towards the reality of what a woman like Celeste actually is: a female paedophile.

What is so difficult about accepting that such women are in fact paedophiles? Is it indeed that they are women, that they are attractive, or that society isn’t prepared to believe such women to be the monsters they perceive male paedophiles to be? This, I believe, is what Nutting is trying to convey with her novel.

In general, the novel is absorbing, intriguing and yes controversial, but most of all important in raising such questions as those asked at the time of the real events, particularly upon the sentencing of the women involved, including: ‘What if the genders of those involved had been reversed?’.