What you can't see, only feel: thoughts on Alissa Nutting's "Tampa"

Not since last year, when I attempted to read as much Charles Bukowski as I could, finding a new favorite book in his first novel Post Office, have I come across a work of literature as captivating and raw as Alissa Nutting's Tampa. Her first novel does an immaculate job at taking a heinous crime, reversing the commonly accepted gender roles for said crime, shedding light onto the erotic elements of it, challenging the way we might feel about said crime when it's spoonfed to us in such a romantic, salacious manner, and ultimately, subtly reminding us of the unforeseen human consequences. 

Tampa follows Celeste Price, a twenty-six-year-old eighth grade English teacher, with a troubling sexual appetite only properly serviced by fourteen-year-old boys. Her husband is a local police officer in their town of Tampa Bay, Florida, but other than providing a secure financial safety net, he's another square caricature in the life of Celeste. She even stays awake for much of the night before the first day of school, masturbating on "her side" of the bed, while her husband lies beside her in an Ambien-induced sleep.

During the first day of school, Celeste meets Jack Patrick, who fits her criteria for a boy that she could sleep with and have nobody find out. Jack is shy, but not stupid, humble and reserved rather than confident and brash, as are his peers, and through every detail Celeste offers of Jack - at first his posture, his facial expressions to later, saucier details such as his actions during sex and his kinks - we understand how picky her depraved fantasy is. The two begin to form a relationship with one another (but not after Celeste visits his home and masturbates in her Corevette as she watching him play video games), with Celeste driving both of them long distances to have sex in the middle of nowhere, and giving Jack a breakaway phone on which to communicate to assure that no one knows of their actions.

I could go on, but there's no need; full-length plot synopses are available online, but rather than looking at them, you should be reading this book - absorbing every detail of its vivid descriptions of illicit sex (which is, yes, statutory rape, no matter how cleanly and cutely you want to put it). You should be taking in Nutting's impeccable descriptions, showing off her amazing creative writing professor skillset by giving us an intoxicating novel that shows more than it tells.

The underlying tragedy in "Tampa" is what got to me over the course of the week I started and finished it. While Jack is essentially living out a fantasy that many prepubescent boys have undoubtedly had, his view of relationships, love, and sex will certainly be crippled following this experience. Throughout the novel, Celeste's thoughts always seem to circle back to ways she's going to cut Jack off or simply move on from him, saying that once he turns fifteen, his body will begin to morph and grow into that of an adult; an adult she will not be attracted to any longer.

Jack, on the other hand, does what most boys infatuated, or even debatably in love, with his teacher and currently in the midst of a sexual awakening would do; write her poems, talk optimistically of the future, and almost entirely plan a life around their affair despite the fact that Celeste is indeed married. Most of my mental-exhaustion at the book came from the idea of Jack's future and hows his feelings of passion and deep satisfaction beyond what was only carnal were nonexistent.

You're not only reading about innocence lost, you're reading about any hope for a stable, romantic future for one of our main characters evaporate with every page-turn.

Tampa persists on, detailing one sexual account between Celeste and Jack after another in explicit detail, and a slew of incredible but largely believable circumstances leading up to the heartbreaking final chapter. Nutting successfully makes a novel that turns a serious, unforgivable crime into something eroticized, but not necessarily dangerously so. If the roles were reversed, like they are in Vladimir Nabokov's famous Lolita, we wouldn't even be discussing the novel's more arousing sentiments and simply condemning the actions here.

Her sexual imagery is powerful and precise, so much so that I struggle to fathom how even Harmony Korine (Spring Breakers, Gummo) will be able to adapt it to film without the "stamp of death" NC-17 rating.

In a sense, Nutting explores the way a confident, beautiful woman can make some people think twice about a crime, or at least see it in a completely different, more sensual light. Nonetheless, the undertones in this book - such as Celeste's unfeeling, sociopathic nature that soon leads to one contemptible action after another, Jack's inevitable feelings of being romantically and sexually lost following this experience, and a key paragraph towards the end about one's realization of the cruel in the world and the other's simple, nonverbal affirmation - communicate the layers of ugliness not often seen on the surface in something like this.

What I'm trying to say, in short, is you have a new book to add to your reading list.