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The Child
Acclaimed author Sarah Schulman (Rat Bohemia, Shimmer) returns with an absorbing novel about a teenager convicted of murder after seeing his online lover charged with pedophilia. Structured like a classic novel of legal suspense, The Child explores what happens when Stew, a lonely fifteen-year-old boy, looks for and finds an adult boyfriend online. In short order his lover is arrested in an Internet pedophilia sting and Stew’s world is turned upside down. He’s exposed to his family and community, leaving the outcast to fend for himself against forces intent on his destruction. Desperate and enraged, the confused Stew murders his nephew in a panic. Schulman’s novel considers the impact of these events on all those involved — from the parents of the murdered child, to Stew’s staunchly Catholic parents, and the attorneys working on his case. Carefully untangling the actions of an isolated teenager denied a natural outlet for his feelings during a critical time in his life, The Child is a haunting meditation on isolation and the prejudices of culture and family.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published May 10, 2007
7 people are currently reading
242 people want to read
About the author
Sarah Schulman
62 books801 followersSarah Schulman is a longtime AIDS and queer activist, and a cofounder of the MIX Festival and the ACT UP Oral History Project. She is a playwright and the author of seventeen books, including the novels The Mere Future, Shimmer, Rat Bohemia, After Delores, and People in Trouble, as well as nonfiction works such as The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination, My American History: Lesbian and Gay Life during the Reagan/Bush Years, Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences, and Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America. She is Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at The City University of New York, College of Staten Island.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
October 14, 2016
Somehow Sarah managed to write her funniest book about her most difficult and controversial subject matter. I'd long wanted to read this book, as someone who was frequently a 'Stew' as a disaffected gay teen in the early 2000s, and was not disappointed. This novel is what happens when you take one of Dennis Cooper's boys and plug them into real life - and just like in Dennis Cooper's novels: adults are rarely out to help anyone but themselves. Sarah's writing injects moments of surprising humour into a worst case scenario that grabs at the root of homophobia - the heterosexual family and its refusal to listen - and it's devastating consequences on the lives of queer teens, adults, and relationships.
June 16, 2007
Sarah Schulman is a great thinker. She writes about what is missing - those things which exist but are unacknowledged. Right away in the opening pages she has referred to omitted history - the Dalkon Shield, the fact that Chelsea used to be a Puerto Rican neighborhood.
One point she makes in the book is that a play (or other creative work) does not have to have a single character as its focus, as the one person everyone who reads it identifies with. When writing a book report, one could say this book is about a teenager, about a lesbian lawyer, about families, about a playwright, about a gay man with AIDS reentering the workforce, about a man arrested for having sex with a teenager. It's about all these people and more, and how their lives reflect each others -- and the effect that homophobia has within families, an effect with lifelong consequences.
Sarah Schulman hasn't had a novel published for quite a while - in the afterword she explains what happened to delay this one, and what finally got it published. Unfortunately, immediately after it was published, the publisher went out of business, so chances are this book will not get the attention it deserves.
One point she makes in the book is that a play (or other creative work) does not have to have a single character as its focus, as the one person everyone who reads it identifies with. When writing a book report, one could say this book is about a teenager, about a lesbian lawyer, about families, about a playwright, about a gay man with AIDS reentering the workforce, about a man arrested for having sex with a teenager. It's about all these people and more, and how their lives reflect each others -- and the effect that homophobia has within families, an effect with lifelong consequences.
Sarah Schulman hasn't had a novel published for quite a while - in the afterword she explains what happened to delay this one, and what finally got it published. Unfortunately, immediately after it was published, the publisher went out of business, so chances are this book will not get the attention it deserves.
December 28, 2009
The Child is one of the more depressing books I've ever read - it is an encyclopedic narrative of the ways in which social and internalized homophobia can dismantle a queer persons world. The writing is very physical as well, sometimes it seems overbearing or tiring with how explicit it is, however Schulman is a talented writer and the degree to which she is able to make you feel anxious as a reader is obviously intentional and appropriate for the content. The other reviews I've read have talked about the 'controversial topic' that the novel centers around (a 15 year old boy having sex with two older men and being coerced to turn them into the police) but I didn't see that as being the most important topic - more the ways in which life is stacked against these characters and the ways they maneuver through life to survive.
Its a good, and important read, although I would suggest coupling it with a less hopeless book, perhaps even Schulmans own 'girls,visions, and everything'.
Its a good, and important read, although I would suggest coupling it with a less hopeless book, perhaps even Schulmans own 'girls,visions, and everything'.
February 28, 2015
How did I miss this book years ago? The writing is stylized and smart and perfect for the storyline - it is so easy to trust Schulman right from the start. And the ending is not overwritten - my most often complaint with most novels. But most disturbing and important is the difficulty she had publishing this book. It was ready for publication in 1999 but not published until 2007. There is sex between a young boy and an adult man at the start of the book, and while this sets the plot in motion Schulman never judges the act, just the domino effect of consequences. This is a book for my students who are not that familiar with the historical context of the novel or of the challenges Schulman faced getting it published.
May 19, 2017
WOW WOW WOW! This one was a page-turner. Serious-minded and deeply disturbing, but there are moments of love and friendship that lighten it. Schulman's brilliant mind, her understanding of culture, social constructs, and sexuality, add a depth and intelligence to the family drama. Heartbreaking, and now more than ever, its exploration of familial homophobia and its effects is vital.
June 29, 2007
It's a book I can't stop thinking about. The complexity built between and behind certain characters--and not others--was unexpected. The potentially volitle plotline ended up instead being neutral, a thin veil draped around a much richer thematic experience. Bravo.
February 11, 2021
It’s interesting to go back and read older Schulman work, when you started with conflict is not abuse. The general theme that communication would be the easiest and quickest way to solve an issue is very present here as well.
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July 22, 2020in the middle of this book, the main characters in this book find out their friend is being prosecuted for child sexual abuse and just instantly *know*, without talking to the child in question or anyone else who might know what happened, that what he did was actually fine because their friend is a good person. the book proceeds as if readers have bought in to the assumption that the sarah-schulman-stand-in character and her friends have correctly assessed that situation -- that was when i got lost. it's certainly a reassuring fantasy, that no one you like and trust could do something that would change your opinion of them. unfortunately a reality-based life requires you to live without that reassurance.
later, the group of friends see the titular child for the first time, and they all get really uncomfortable because he looks so young, way younger than anyone they imagined their friend could be attracted to -- this is never expanded on or revisited, the story just goes on. are we sitting with the discomfort, thinking about what it means, and reaching our own conclusions, or are we stifling our discomfort because we care more about justifying how we're right?
the places this book is strongest are where it touches reality: there are brief and moving illustrations of the fact that criminalization doesn't cause justice in the lives of the people who are caught up in it. the depiction of the kid seeking a life outside his family because he's hated for being gay is really good in many places. he's not a good kid, he's often unlikable, but it's obvious that the reason he's floundering is that he repeatedly asks for love from his parents and they won't give it to him no matter what he does. i have seen this in the lives of a lot of my friends and i wish more authors would write about it, because homophobic and transphobic parents don't know that they're cutting out the best parts of their lives, and i think a lot of the kids still don't know they're not the problem.
child abuse is bad, and it's important to talk about how families and prisons are the main places that child abuse happens, rather than the predatory stranger who looms so large in the American imagination. the basic flaw of this book is that you can obviously write a book where anything happens, so of course a book that presents a story about an adult who's a really nice guy, but he fucks a child, but only because the child really wanted it, and it would've been totally fine if his annoying parents hadn't freaked out about it, has limited relevance to how we should see the real world.
similarly, the subplot is another iteration of schulman's whole thing in her fiction about how women who don't want to be around the downtrodden lesbian protagonist anymore are always just brainwashed by homophobes and need schulman to dramatically show them the error of their ways. having your relationship ruined by your partner's homophobic family could certainly be really interesting and relatable to a gay reader, until you notice how it keeps happening in every book and is always written with very little nuance, and the solution is always for the lesbian to go on an unsolicited grand journey and turn up where she's not expected to surprise her former lover with the great truth of their love. i think most people haven't done this, and it's a little weird to have it be the relatable thing that happens in every novel you write, because accepting someone's rejection and moving on is normal and healthy, even if their reasons for doing so hurt your feelings or don't jibe with the values you thought you shared with the other person. i must be such a dupe for thinking so, obviously, so disregard my opinions.
later, the group of friends see the titular child for the first time, and they all get really uncomfortable because he looks so young, way younger than anyone they imagined their friend could be attracted to -- this is never expanded on or revisited, the story just goes on. are we sitting with the discomfort, thinking about what it means, and reaching our own conclusions, or are we stifling our discomfort because we care more about justifying how we're right?
the places this book is strongest are where it touches reality: there are brief and moving illustrations of the fact that criminalization doesn't cause justice in the lives of the people who are caught up in it. the depiction of the kid seeking a life outside his family because he's hated for being gay is really good in many places. he's not a good kid, he's often unlikable, but it's obvious that the reason he's floundering is that he repeatedly asks for love from his parents and they won't give it to him no matter what he does. i have seen this in the lives of a lot of my friends and i wish more authors would write about it, because homophobic and transphobic parents don't know that they're cutting out the best parts of their lives, and i think a lot of the kids still don't know they're not the problem.
child abuse is bad, and it's important to talk about how families and prisons are the main places that child abuse happens, rather than the predatory stranger who looms so large in the American imagination. the basic flaw of this book is that you can obviously write a book where anything happens, so of course a book that presents a story about an adult who's a really nice guy, but he fucks a child, but only because the child really wanted it, and it would've been totally fine if his annoying parents hadn't freaked out about it, has limited relevance to how we should see the real world.
similarly, the subplot is another iteration of schulman's whole thing in her fiction about how women who don't want to be around the downtrodden lesbian protagonist anymore are always just brainwashed by homophobes and need schulman to dramatically show them the error of their ways. having your relationship ruined by your partner's homophobic family could certainly be really interesting and relatable to a gay reader, until you notice how it keeps happening in every book and is always written with very little nuance, and the solution is always for the lesbian to go on an unsolicited grand journey and turn up where she's not expected to surprise her former lover with the great truth of their love. i think most people haven't done this, and it's a little weird to have it be the relatable thing that happens in every novel you write, because accepting someone's rejection and moving on is normal and healthy, even if their reasons for doing so hurt your feelings or don't jibe with the values you thought you shared with the other person. i must be such a dupe for thinking so, obviously, so disregard my opinions.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 4, 2018
This novel by Sarah Schulman is no doubt a somewhat controversial one given its subject matter, but that is all the more reason we should not shy away from reading this story.
Relationships between older and younger men have always been a theme in gay fiction and reality, for better or worse, possibly going back to ancient Greek times. This has likewise been reflected in various novels, including Andre Aciman's 2007 Call Me By Your Name. Even today, it is not so uncommon to see someone in his 20s in a relationship with another male perhaps several decades older.
Gay life in America has long been a very complicated and, yes, messy business, and human beings are as well, especially when they are loners struggling to find their identity. In that uncertainty, cast aside by even your own family, some will go almost anywhere and anything to find even the briefest moment of connection with someone who might possibly understand what it is like to grow up different.
Many Americans like to see morality in a very strictly black-and-white way, but unfortunately, there are sometimes nuances and complexities which escape the understanding of many people. Is it ultimately right to find someone guilty as an adult of murdering their family member even though that person by the same country's laws not deemed mature enough to enter the adult world? As a quick aside, in most parts of America Latina, a 15-year-old is generally considered by law old enough to make his or her own decisions.
I applaud the author for her initiative in tackling what must have been a very sensitive and provocative subject manner to many. But as much as society likes to shun taboo material, they should not be censored or ignored; we have tried sanitizing literature many times in history only to have it backfire. There are many straight women who enjoy writing all kinds of gay fiction, but far fewer lesbian women as far as I am aware, and so her efforts in writing this are even more admirable in that sense.
I do feel that Stew's intense rage towards his nephew seemed to have been sudden and misplaced (his father was the one responsible for neglecting him, after all, not the little boy), and that the seemingly serene ending with Eva seemed rather lacking in some sense. But overall, something that all people, gay and straight or both, should probably consider reading.
Relationships between older and younger men have always been a theme in gay fiction and reality, for better or worse, possibly going back to ancient Greek times. This has likewise been reflected in various novels, including Andre Aciman's 2007 Call Me By Your Name. Even today, it is not so uncommon to see someone in his 20s in a relationship with another male perhaps several decades older.
Gay life in America has long been a very complicated and, yes, messy business, and human beings are as well, especially when they are loners struggling to find their identity. In that uncertainty, cast aside by even your own family, some will go almost anywhere and anything to find even the briefest moment of connection with someone who might possibly understand what it is like to grow up different.
Many Americans like to see morality in a very strictly black-and-white way, but unfortunately, there are sometimes nuances and complexities which escape the understanding of many people. Is it ultimately right to find someone guilty as an adult of murdering their family member even though that person by the same country's laws not deemed mature enough to enter the adult world? As a quick aside, in most parts of America Latina, a 15-year-old is generally considered by law old enough to make his or her own decisions.
I applaud the author for her initiative in tackling what must have been a very sensitive and provocative subject manner to many. But as much as society likes to shun taboo material, they should not be censored or ignored; we have tried sanitizing literature many times in history only to have it backfire. There are many straight women who enjoy writing all kinds of gay fiction, but far fewer lesbian women as far as I am aware, and so her efforts in writing this are even more admirable in that sense.
I do feel that Stew's intense rage towards his nephew seemed to have been sudden and misplaced (his father was the one responsible for neglecting him, after all, not the little boy), and that the seemingly serene ending with Eva seemed rather lacking in some sense. But overall, something that all people, gay and straight or both, should probably consider reading.
August 30, 2021
A Dennis Cooper story grounded in reality. This was really, really strong, affecting, and complex in a way that I've come to admire with Schulman. The shifting viewpoints felt like they worked together in a system, rather than scattered pieces smashed together as can be the case with this kind of structure. Extremely believable and compelling psychological character studies. And it was a very good time to read this as yet another moral panic over teen sexuality and the term "trafficking" was happening over on twitter.
May 10, 2014
This is probably, hands down, one of the worst books I have ever read. I feel like she was writing things just for shock value that held no bearing to the story whatsoever. If it would have stuck to the story of Stew and his unbecoming it wouldn't have been so bad. But the whole Eva/ mary/ hockey bit was just dribble. It focused more on Them than what was supposed to be the plot. Eva's poor- me pitiful ramblings made zero sense and she was clinging to mary like a child with a blankie. I felt like she and mary weren't together out of love. They were together so they could say "I'm here, I'm queer" yada yada. And Mary was a selfish bitch. She skipped on Eva, the woman she claimed to "love" when Eva was facing cancer and scared? Yup, that's a hell of a woman. and Then there was Stew. I felt bad that his family couldn't accept him for what he was, which I guess what the point. But IN NO WAY does being "misunderstood" give ANYONE the right to beat an innocent seven year old to death?! No. and he wasn't even given a trial because again, she was so focused on the Eva/Mary drama. In a perfect world, before he committed Murder, Hockey could have taken Stew under his wing and taught him the ropes of being a gay man in this day and age. Then maybe this book could have been saved.
December 10, 2021
I am always blown away by Sarah Schulman. Her observations about her characters and their observations about each other are so clear and so right-on that it sort of amaze you to read them. It's almost like she knows exactly how to find and describe thoughts that most of us keep hidden in the basements of our minds--locked away from even ourselves--and she just pours them out and into her characters.
The relationship between Mary and Eva was particularly well done, the internal monologue that Stew's mother has interacting with his dad, Mary's Californian musings, and Stew's freak-out all really stood out to me as painful, but very true moments.
I heard some folks talk smack about the ending: I liked it. I thought it fit the book well.
And although it is not a hugely prominent theme in the story, Schulman's literary answer to the end of AIDS is probably one of the best done, and really fills a vacuum in the continuity of lesbigay lit.
Caveat: this is a terribly sad book. But other than that, wow.
The relationship between Mary and Eva was particularly well done, the internal monologue that Stew's mother has interacting with his dad, Mary's Californian musings, and Stew's freak-out all really stood out to me as painful, but very true moments.
I heard some folks talk smack about the ending: I liked it. I thought it fit the book well.
And although it is not a hugely prominent theme in the story, Schulman's literary answer to the end of AIDS is probably one of the best done, and really fills a vacuum in the continuity of lesbigay lit.
Caveat: this is a terribly sad book. But other than that, wow.
November 24, 2007
This book touches on some very controversial topics, such as the relationship between the teenage boy and the male adult. The author deals with major issues such as homophobia in a way that is exceptionally precise and not the least bit overdone. The thing that struck me the most about this book was the way the author managed to depict the lack of communication in a family and the frustration and confusion inherent to miscommunication. It was done absolutely perfect. The characters were interesting, the plot was intriguing, and the writing techniques were used to advance the underlying ideas of the story. A quick read, and a story I won't soon forget.
June 4, 2008
This is a pretty wrenching book about what happens when a teenage gay boy and his adult boyfriends are caught, the adult boyfriends get in serious trouble, and the teenage boy's family turns on him in a major way. The concurrent plot centers around the lawyer who takes on the adult boyfriend's case, and her relationship with her girlfriend. Both plots are equally gripping. Clearly, Sarah Schulman has no problem updating her depressing-things-happen-to-gay-people style for the 2000s. Warning- some parts of this book are extremely upsetting.
July 17, 2007
Schulman does a great job constructing a story but the non-ending really annoyed me. I haven't felt this cheated by a book since Peter Høeg wrote "Smilla's Sense of Snow".
March 20, 2025
I read this novel long before I knew anything about Sarah Schulman so my opinions of the novel were formed free of any instinctive bias towards Ms. Schulman for her politics or activities which are ones I would have agreed with. The problem with this novel is that it is not really about intergenerational (why can't I just say older man having sex with teenage boy?) relationships but homophobia and the refusal of the boys family to accept that he is 'gay' (I use that term deliberately). The novel is really about the destructive consequences of this on the boy, though it also has catastrophic effects on the man.
My problem with the novel is that the circumstances of the novel are so time and place sensitive, but then I find this often with American 'gay' writing. It may not be the intention of the authors of these novels but they do come across as if they were describing universal events, characters and problems which hold true and are applicable universally. The American blindness to their own parochialism is sometimes astounding and it is only through reading what for example, an Irish writer like Michael O Conghaile, was writing at the same time, or earlier (the novel was published in 2007 but written sometime before) that the navel-gazing nature of much American gay writing becomes apparent. I can't criticise Ms. Schulman's good intentions, but a bit like Randy Shilts mendaciously identifying Gaëtan Dugas as "Patient Zero" in his 1987 book 'And the Band Played On', there is a basic dishonesty at the heart of this novel.
Boys like Stew in 'The Child' turn to older men because they are not receiving and see no way of accessing help and support from family or more importantly their friends and peer group. It is sad to think that in the USA that situation is as bad now as it was then and trends give no reasons for optimism. That is different in other countries does not seem to register with Americans (and I am thinking of my own formerly priest ridden Ireland and not those more obviously 'liberal countries like the UK in which I live). What a boy like Stew wants is complicated but it isn't necessarily sex but it is sex that men who have enter into relationships with boys want. There can be shades of grey ('The Men From the Boys' by William Mann is a good example) but overall I have yet to read a story of man boy love that isn't a case of wishful thinking/special pleading (see my reviews of 'Playing Soldiers in the Dark' by Stephen Dueweke' or 'Kevin' by Wallace Hamilton).
In Ms. Schulman's case the motivation of the man (sorry I can't recall his name) is not examined, because the emphasis of the novel is didactic, to denounce homophobia. But it makes the novel as dishonest as the books I mention.
I have given it three stars because Ms. Schulman had her heart in the right place and it isn't a bad book, but I have probably been too generous.
My problem with the novel is that the circumstances of the novel are so time and place sensitive, but then I find this often with American 'gay' writing. It may not be the intention of the authors of these novels but they do come across as if they were describing universal events, characters and problems which hold true and are applicable universally. The American blindness to their own parochialism is sometimes astounding and it is only through reading what for example, an Irish writer like Michael O Conghaile, was writing at the same time, or earlier (the novel was published in 2007 but written sometime before) that the navel-gazing nature of much American gay writing becomes apparent. I can't criticise Ms. Schulman's good intentions, but a bit like Randy Shilts mendaciously identifying Gaëtan Dugas as "Patient Zero" in his 1987 book 'And the Band Played On', there is a basic dishonesty at the heart of this novel.
Boys like Stew in 'The Child' turn to older men because they are not receiving and see no way of accessing help and support from family or more importantly their friends and peer group. It is sad to think that in the USA that situation is as bad now as it was then and trends give no reasons for optimism. That is different in other countries does not seem to register with Americans (and I am thinking of my own formerly priest ridden Ireland and not those more obviously 'liberal countries like the UK in which I live). What a boy like Stew wants is complicated but it isn't necessarily sex but it is sex that men who have enter into relationships with boys want. There can be shades of grey ('The Men From the Boys' by William Mann is a good example) but overall I have yet to read a story of man boy love that isn't a case of wishful thinking/special pleading (see my reviews of 'Playing Soldiers in the Dark' by Stephen Dueweke' or 'Kevin' by Wallace Hamilton).
In Ms. Schulman's case the motivation of the man (sorry I can't recall his name) is not examined, because the emphasis of the novel is didactic, to denounce homophobia. But it makes the novel as dishonest as the books I mention.
I have given it three stars because Ms. Schulman had her heart in the right place and it isn't a bad book, but I have probably been too generous.
February 19, 2024
The tragic story of a 15 year old boy that never had a chance at a happy life. Stew and Eva were born to parents that didn't know how to unconditionally love their children. As soon as their children were outed as being gay, their parents washed their hands of them. Because of this, Stew was forced into compromising positions that escalated, completely out of control. Though Schulman wrote this book originally in 1999, cases of neglect by parents of gay children are still all too common and they are forced to create their own families or be all alone
"If they had just loved him, everything would have been all right."
"If they had just loved him, everything would have been all right."
November 17, 2025
It felt unfinished. And the publishers were completely right about the morality of Stew and David’s relationship being muddled. The author uses that as a complaint against the publishers, arguing a more “objective” viewpoint. Well objectively, their relationship was ethically wrong. It seemed like the story was going somewhere, only for it to fall off.
August 24, 2021
made me cry but then lost me a lil towards the end. not morally but emotionally. or maybe i’m just tired /: sarah schulman still the most profound writer of all time
April 9, 2011
The Child is about a gay fifteen-year old named Stew. Stew travels to Manhattan in order to meet up with an adult gay couple, David and Joe, that he met online. He has gone to their apartment a few times, and has engaged in sexual activity with them while there. Stew then propositions a police officer in a public restroom, and his world comes crashing down.
The officer convinces Stew to turn in David and Joe through deception. David and Joe are arrested, and because David has a prior conviction, he'll likely get a stiff sentence. The book also follows two attorneys, Hockey and Eva, and Eva's partner, Mary, a playwright who's had little success in NY's theater scene. Hockey is approached by a friend who wants him to represent David. Hockey brings in Eva to assist him.
I'm torn about how I feel about this book. The book is literary LGBT fiction wrapped up in a legal thriller wrapper. The problem is, I don't think it entirely works as either. For starters, most of the dialogue felt inauthentic. It reminded me, in fact, of a pastiche of A.M. Homes and her very weird, but very realistic dialogue. I'm not a fan of legal thrillers, but I've read a few, and this just didn't flow in the same way as legal thrillers I've read. In fact, the tempo felt off. (I can't really explain why. That's just the way I felt).
On the other hand, there was a lot about this book that I liked. The ambiguity of Stew's fate seemed natural, since the fate of any teenager (and gay teenagers in particular) is always ambiguous. I also appreciated that Schulman's treatment of David and Joe's actions was fairly objective. While the characters all seemed to have opinions about it, I didn't get a sense that the author's opinion was presented anywhere in the novel. Were David and Joe pedophiles? Legally, yes. Is growing up different for gay teens and straight teens? Absolutely. Does that make David and Joe's actions appropriate? No. Does it make their actions understandable? Possibly.
For me, though, the book fell apart at its most crucial scene. While I won't give the specifics away, it's fairly obvious that Stew is filled with rage, mostly directed towards his family. When that rage finally erupted, it erased any amount of empathy I had for Stew. I was extremely frustrated by a decision that Mary made late in the book, but I was even more frustrated by Eva's reaction to it. I don't expect tidy endings all wrapped up in a bow. I do expect that decisions characters make have a connection to their thoughts or behaviors earlier in the novel. I also expect characters to demonstrate some emotional depth. Schulman's tone was so objective, that her characters felt flat.
So how do I judge this book. I usually go by three criteria. Did I enjoy reading it, would I read it again, and would I recommend it to specific people. I did enjoy reading it, though I wouldn't read it again. There are too many great books out there to settle down with a mediocre one twice. As to recommending it: I couldn't think of a single friend that I thought would like this book.
This book gave me the impression that while Schulman is an adequate writer, she's neither a good writer nor a great one. But I'll read at least one more of her books to get a better impression of her talent.
The officer convinces Stew to turn in David and Joe through deception. David and Joe are arrested, and because David has a prior conviction, he'll likely get a stiff sentence. The book also follows two attorneys, Hockey and Eva, and Eva's partner, Mary, a playwright who's had little success in NY's theater scene. Hockey is approached by a friend who wants him to represent David. Hockey brings in Eva to assist him.
I'm torn about how I feel about this book. The book is literary LGBT fiction wrapped up in a legal thriller wrapper. The problem is, I don't think it entirely works as either. For starters, most of the dialogue felt inauthentic. It reminded me, in fact, of a pastiche of A.M. Homes and her very weird, but very realistic dialogue. I'm not a fan of legal thrillers, but I've read a few, and this just didn't flow in the same way as legal thrillers I've read. In fact, the tempo felt off. (I can't really explain why. That's just the way I felt).
On the other hand, there was a lot about this book that I liked. The ambiguity of Stew's fate seemed natural, since the fate of any teenager (and gay teenagers in particular) is always ambiguous. I also appreciated that Schulman's treatment of David and Joe's actions was fairly objective. While the characters all seemed to have opinions about it, I didn't get a sense that the author's opinion was presented anywhere in the novel. Were David and Joe pedophiles? Legally, yes. Is growing up different for gay teens and straight teens? Absolutely. Does that make David and Joe's actions appropriate? No. Does it make their actions understandable? Possibly.
For me, though, the book fell apart at its most crucial scene. While I won't give the specifics away, it's fairly obvious that Stew is filled with rage, mostly directed towards his family. When that rage finally erupted, it erased any amount of empathy I had for Stew. I was extremely frustrated by a decision that Mary made late in the book, but I was even more frustrated by Eva's reaction to it. I don't expect tidy endings all wrapped up in a bow. I do expect that decisions characters make have a connection to their thoughts or behaviors earlier in the novel. I also expect characters to demonstrate some emotional depth. Schulman's tone was so objective, that her characters felt flat.
So how do I judge this book. I usually go by three criteria. Did I enjoy reading it, would I read it again, and would I recommend it to specific people. I did enjoy reading it, though I wouldn't read it again. There are too many great books out there to settle down with a mediocre one twice. As to recommending it: I couldn't think of a single friend that I thought would like this book.
This book gave me the impression that while Schulman is an adequate writer, she's neither a good writer nor a great one. But I'll read at least one more of her books to get a better impression of her talent.
November 25, 2013
The Child is bold and ambitious in its politics, but fails as a story. For a novel originally written in 1999 (pre-9/11), its critiques of contemporary sexual panic, our assumptions about intergenerational relationships, and queer youth are prescient, but Schulman’s two plotlines fail to go anywhere or intersect in any meaningful way. In the first storyline, the main character, Stew, is a fifteen-year-old boy who is outed to his family when his much older boyfriend is arrested during a sting. The narrative explores how Stew struggles with coming out as a gay teenager in spite of insistence by his family and social worker that he is a damaged (heterosexual) victim of molestation. This more promising side of the story is bogged down by the pointless secondary storyline about the lawyer Eva (who is defending Stew’s boyfriend) and the collapse of her relationship with her partner. While Stew’s story is ridden with non-sequiturs and clichéd, melodramatic dialogue, Eva’s is filled with unbearable expository narration that tells rather than shows. The Child has its heart in the right place, I think, but I'm sorry to say it's disappointingly amateur.
September 15, 2009
While some of the consensual-sex/pedophilia subject-matter may be objectionable to readers, the author clearly makes the case that some laws cannot be FAIRLY applied in a cut-and dried fashion. The author's viewpoint is brave and well reasoned.
This book is not for the faint-of-heart, but I believe intrepid, logical thinkers will gain something from reading the story.
This book is not for the faint-of-heart, but I believe intrepid, logical thinkers will gain something from reading the story.
August 6, 2015
The reason why I started reading this book was because I thought it would have a psychological insight or maybe tackle the whole "Why aren't you more like me and how can I force you to become so without being perceived as a monster?"
It was an OKAY book. Nothing magical, and i didn't really feel the "disgusting and sick" part that a lot of reviews mentioned.
It was an OKAY book. Nothing magical, and i didn't really feel the "disgusting and sick" part that a lot of reviews mentioned.
January 9, 2009
I still don't know how this book didn't win the Pulitzer and everything else for its year. It is, among other things, a devastating critique of our myriad hypocrisies around children, their innocence and eroticism.
July 27, 2009
To be fair, I liked the author's note more than I liked the actual book.
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