Tampa by Alissa Nutting
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The New High School Confidential*

I initially was unable to grasp the point of Tampa. It is explicitly pornographic, but pornography isn’t required for getting across the message that there are narcissistic female sexual predators. Recent news stories confirm that already. The book goes into some detail about the psychology of teenage boys and their difficulties in dealing with testosterone. But I doubt that anyone, male or female, will be unfamiliar with the effects of this infamous hormone.

There seem to be two moral lessons suggested by Ms. Nutting, that it is easier for female pedophiles to escape appropriate justice than their male colleagues; and that pedophiles will continue to reoffend regardless of the consequences. But these lessons are incidental to her story-line and, in any case, reasonably well known. Only after closing the book did it strike me: of course, this isn’t really a novel at all but a ready-made movie script. Move over 50 Shades of Grey. There’s a new tabu-breaker in town, soon in a theatre near you.

* A note on the title of my comments: High School Confidential is a film of my youth. Released in 1958, it portrayed teenage drug use, seduction, illicit sex, and generally bad behaviour. It was condemned by the Catholic Church and there were informal age restrictions in place. But aged 11 I bluffed my way in (movies cost 25 cents at the time for kids, I paid half a buck!). It’s a terrible film although Jerry Lee Lewis’s eponymous tune was a hit. In any case, when the film of Tampa gets produced (and it will), I suspect there will be the same reaction to it by the ‘moral authorities’ which will only encourage more children to do what I did.

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