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Unmolested
In the wake of a sex-abuse scandal at an all-boys’ summer camp, an openly gay alum returns as a “guest-star counselor.” But then, he finds himself not only a role model but also the object of an adolescent camper’s crush.
True Story is a home for longform nonfiction narratives. Published monthly by the editors of Creative Nonfiction, each pocket-size issue of True Story showcases one exceptional essay by one exceptional writer. From issue to issue, this new mini-magazine features the widest possible variety of voices and styles and subjects. Offering vivid, immersive reports from real life, every issue of True Story is a small celebration of the larger-than-life stories and experiences that make us think differently about what it means to be human.
True Story is a home for longform nonfiction narratives. Published monthly by the editors of Creative Nonfiction, each pocket-size issue of True Story showcases one exceptional essay by one exceptional writer. From issue to issue, this new mini-magazine features the widest possible variety of voices and styles and subjects. Offering vivid, immersive reports from real life, every issue of True Story is a small celebration of the larger-than-life stories and experiences that make us think differently about what it means to be human.
39 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 1, 2018
1 person is currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
Michael Lowenthal
30 books38 followersMichael Lowenthal is the author of the novels Charity Girl (Houghton Mifflin, 2007), Avoidance (Graywolf Press, 2002) and The Same Embrace (Dutton, 1998). His short stories have appeared in Tin House, the Southern Review, the Kenyon Review, and Esquire.com, and have been widely anthologized, in such volumes as Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction from the Edge (HarperCollins), Bestial Noise: The Tin House Fiction Reader (Bloomsbury), and Best New American Voices 2005 (Harcourt). Three of his stories have received "Special Mention" in Pushcart Prize anthologies. He has also written nonfiction for the New York Times Magazine, Boston Magazine, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Out, and many other publications.
The recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Wesleyan writers' conferences, the MacDowell Colony, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers, Lowenthal is also the winner of the James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize. He teaches creative writing in the low-residency MFA program at Lesley University.
Before becoming a full-time writer, Lowenthal worked as an editor for University Press of New England, where he founded the Hardscrabble Books imprint, publishing such authors as Chris Bohjalian, W.D. Wetherell, and Ernest Hebert. He studied English and comparative religion at Dartmouth College, from which he graduated in 1990 as class valedictorian.
Lowenthal lives in Boston, where he is an active former board member of the literary human rights organization PEN New England.
The recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Wesleyan writers' conferences, the MacDowell Colony, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, and the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers, Lowenthal is also the winner of the James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists' Prize. He teaches creative writing in the low-residency MFA program at Lesley University.
Before becoming a full-time writer, Lowenthal worked as an editor for University Press of New England, where he founded the Hardscrabble Books imprint, publishing such authors as Chris Bohjalian, W.D. Wetherell, and Ernest Hebert. He studied English and comparative religion at Dartmouth College, from which he graduated in 1990 as class valedictorian.
Lowenthal lives in Boston, where he is an active former board member of the literary human rights organization PEN New England.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 30, 2020
2.5 Stars
A young man answers the call to aid his beloved former summer camp after its reputation is damaged by a sexual abuse scandal. He goes back as a prized camp counselor, hoping to serve as an appealing example of being out-and-proud. But a 14-year-old camper finds him far more appealing than is strictly appropriate...
I had really mixed feeling about this piece. On the one hand, it's very well written and sympathy-inducing. And I feel like the author deserves some credit for both transparency and discomfiting honesty regarding his thought life. On the other hand... he basically confesses to being a non-practicing hebephile (erotically attracted to pubescent boys.)
And as he struggles with how to distance himself--while innocently and appropriately answering this young boy's fixation and repeated propositioning--it never once seems to occur to him that said boy was, perhaps, a victim of molestation who was acting out (i.e. in need of help.) Considering the whole reason for him being back at the camp related to past abuses of power by predatory staff, it boggles me that he never considers this boy may very well have been one of the campers affected.
Instead, he looks back on the incident years later... and falls into a fixated fantasy of his own about tracking down and contacting the now grown-up camper. Because, you know, he's single now...
A young man answers the call to aid his beloved former summer camp after its reputation is damaged by a sexual abuse scandal. He goes back as a prized camp counselor, hoping to serve as an appealing example of being out-and-proud. But a 14-year-old camper finds him far more appealing than is strictly appropriate...
I had really mixed feeling about this piece. On the one hand, it's very well written and sympathy-inducing. And I feel like the author deserves some credit for both transparency and discomfiting honesty regarding his thought life. On the other hand... he basically confesses to being a non-practicing hebephile (erotically attracted to pubescent boys.)
And as he struggles with how to distance himself--while innocently and appropriately answering this young boy's fixation and repeated propositioning--it never once seems to occur to him that said boy was, perhaps, a victim of molestation who was acting out (i.e. in need of help.) Considering the whole reason for him being back at the camp related to past abuses of power by predatory staff, it boggles me that he never considers this boy may very well have been one of the campers affected.
Instead, he looks back on the incident years later... and falls into a fixated fantasy of his own about tracking down and contacting the now grown-up camper. Because, you know, he's single now...
January 26, 2019
Infused with panic of self-confrontation, Lowenthal's tale induces questions: has he overreacted? Have we minimized the issue? Well-written and honest, it is nevertheless an account of what didn't happen.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews