I was only familiar with Nutting through the TV adaptation of Made for Love, which I liked very much. So I figured I’d check out her debut. Made for Love made me expect cleverness and originality. It certainly did not make me expect Tampa. I don’t know how anyone anticipates a book like that. In fact, honestly, I’m not sure how it ever got published.
Which isn’t to say it’s a terrible book that doesn’t deserve to see the light of day so much as to say it’s way too in-your-face controversial for the delicate modern audiences. And yes, the book’s a decade old, but still…the reading audiences have only been getting more delicate with time. People can scarcely read books without content warnings now. And the contents of Tampa are rather…shocking even to a seasoned and diverse reader. Tampa is told from an almost stream-of-consciousness perspective of a predatorial female pedo. Or maybe that’s a redundancy? No, probably not, because Celeste is highly and unapologetically aggressive in her pursuits of teenage boys. Not just any, she has a very specific type, the barely-teens, fourteen, ideally. To that end, she gets a job as a middle grade teacher, as perfect of a hunting place as any pedo could ask for and then proceeds to find and seduce her victims. This novel is as brashly graphically sexual as it is controversial too. Celeste is constantly horny. The man she married can’t possibly satisfy here since he’s, you know, an adult man. And the boys she chooses, she just can’t get enough off. I’m no prude, and Celeste sexuality was still overwhelming. And also, just difficult to read about at times for obvious reasons. But for all its difficulties and nothing even remotely resembling easy likability or any likability, the novel does have that certain something—it is propulsive. Celeste is as amoral or morally repugnant of a protagonist as you can have, but her shamelessness, her blatant satisfaction of her appetites at all costs makes her strangely compelling like American Psycho or any other psycho. Or even Ted Bundy…a man who people found so charming, even at his own trial. And you know why Tampa has that? Because Nutting is a clever author. She really is. Because she takes the opportunity to explore our cultural obsession with beauty by showcasing how much her stunning gorgeous, superficially charming sociopath Celeste can and does get away with. Because Nutting doesn’t take the easy way out with her character by throwing in some twee remorse or cheap easy ways out. Celeste, for all her numerous faults, stays the course. She rejoices in her monstrosity. And the other clever thing about this novel is how subtly showcases the damage someone like Celeste can cause a young person. Because fundamentally no matter what centerfold dreams a teenage boy might have and no matter how stunning Celeste is, what she causes is severe damage. Still, though, how did this get sold? Or marketed? As a gender-flipped Lolita? But that book is practically chaste and moral when compared to Tampa. I guess hit just the right subversive notes. Who knows? Either way, an intense read and certainly not for everybody. But it does announce Nutting as a writer to watch. Read at your own discretion.
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