The Child

by Sarah Schulman

Book Overview

"Schulman crafts a piercing investigation into desire, mores, and the law."-- Publishers Weekly "An important work of American literature. That this is probably not how the book will be handled, reviewed, shelved, sold and read makes the novel all the more necessary and true."-- Lambda Book Report "Sarah Schulman is one our most articulate observers."-- The Advocate "In true Schulman form, the book has a gleaming intelligence and chilled anger. It's...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1551522438
• ISBN13: 9781551522432
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Desire, Mores and the Law

Schulman, Sarah. "The Child", Arsenal Pulp, 2008. Desire, Mores and the Law Amos Lassen Sarah Schulman has proven herself to be a keen observer of American life with her book "The Child". It is both an intelligent and angry look at America with the thought provoking story which examines homophobia and gay teen sexuality as well as pedophilia. Stew Mulcahey is a fifteen year old boy who is gay and troubled and this takes him into the arms of 39 year old David Ziernska and his partner, Joe. He meets David online and later David and Joe are arrested for child molestation. This causes great problems for Stew and emphasizes his poor relations with his family and his own mental breakdown which leads to the senseless murder of Victor, his young nephew. Stew is tried as an adult for the murder and if that is the case that he is treated as an adult then Joe and David cannot be guilty of child molestation. David has a gay lawyer, Hockey Notkin, who is struggling with his partner's death from AIDS. Notkin turns to a law partner, Eve Krasner .who has her own problems, for help but she is also having problems with her lover Mary and is also facing a health problem. This is a rough case for the both of them because to create a case for David was to push the blame on Stew for the murder of his nephew and while he is not the client they are working for, they feel that he is more the victim of his own family's and the American justice system's homophobia. There are many characters and subplots in the novel and as the novel progresses facades are stripped away and Sarah Schulman gives us several iconoclastic images. She deals with the unfairness with the way gay youth is treated. The subjects discussed in "The Child" are serious subjects and that makes this thin book quite heavy reading. We, too often, see individuals destroyed by the systems which try to help them; the systems that are supposed to offer them protection. The book is important to the GLBT experience as so many problems seem to arise from it and this is probably because it is not understood and many do not want to understand it. Schulman has taken a difficult subject and brought it home in a way that is a compelling read.

No country for old men, but they're running things anyway...

If you know who Procrustes was, and what "procrustean" means, then you'll be at home in this book. That mythical character is alive and well, but his modus operandi has changed since Greek times: now s/he's the person who asks "Can't we all just get along together?" when what s/he really means is, "Why aren't you more like me and how can I force you to become so without being perceived as a monster?" This novel is part of a line of great works of art that show, in very entertaining terms, how individuals are often destroyed by the helping systems that are supposed to protect them. I think of "The Consul" by Gian Carlo Menotti as a similarly great work with the same timely overarching theme. This is not to say that if you loved Menotti's "The Consul", you'll love Schulman's book - but you *might* if you are willing to re-read the book until you 'get it'. About the humor: Wonderful! but I missed a lot of it at first read because there are so many other things that grabbed my attention. Examples: Eva's riffs on voice mail systems at large companies; and there are screamingly funny sentences all throughout the book, one being something like 'I can't believe f****** Michele disconnected me!' (Michele being a sour and uninformed operator at some unnamed company.) Some writers would get a chuckle out of such a line; the way Schulman writes, it is so beautifully set up that I laughed, in pain, out loud, on the subway, for a long time. People were suspicious: "What is wrong with that man that he is laughing in public in front of strangers." How can something so humiliating feel so cathartic? "The Child" is rooted in a set of Gay/Lesbian experience that seems pretty common to me, so "What happens next, and Why" made total sense. That said, Schulman has a whole cosmology that some people won't get at first, even if they're headed in the same direction already. For me, her books feel more insightful as I get older, so maybe they will for you, too. Throughout this book, people throw in the towel in different ways - and only a few of them move forward again. If you care about sex in America in any way, her books are worthwhile reading. DISCLAIMER: This being American, I need to make it clear that I have contempt for pedophiles and that this book did not make me more sympathetic to them. What it did make me realize is that media stories about them are simplified so that they lose all connection to reality and, as a result of that, we as a society lose all hope of addressing the outcomes. That's partly why we in such dire straits as a country.

Nobody Is Listening

I took Sarah Schulman's book "The Child" with me on a little August retreat to the northern shore of Lake Superior. I suppose that I could have taken something a little less cumbersome -- although it is a thin little novel, its subject matter and the pathetic characters that populate the story weigh the reader down sufficiently enough. Stew is a fifteen-year old young man in a dysfunctional family who has finally found happiness in the arms of a couple of men he has met through an internet connection. The two men, David and Joe, are a gay couple who sincerely care for Stew, but underestimate just how unstable the boy actually is. An alternate thread of the story involves Eva, a woman who we first meet in a clinic as she undergoes a humiliating breast examination. She is fearful of a possible cancer diagnosis, she is lamenting professional failures, she is mourning her family's complete alienation from her (due to her lesbian lifestyle), she wonders about the stability of her relationship with Mary, her lover, and she is almost certain that she is being molested by this doctor who is examining her breast. Yes -- all of this is going on in her head during the course of this procedure, and it is no wonder that the activities and dialogue that take place in the room all seem to come to Eva out of some sort of fog. And that, ultimately, is the hook of Ms Schulman's novel. The inner dramas that are going on within the major characters of her story tend to be just as prominent as the external dramas. In fact, sometimes they take over. The characters find themselves completely lost in their musings until something drags them out, and you can almost see them blinking and shaking the cobwebs out of their heads. As a reader, I was initially frustrated with this. There were complete sections of dialogue that seemed completely disconnected -- a character would say something, but would receive a response that seemed to have nothing to do with the thread of the conversation. NO ONE IS ACTUALLY LISTENING. They are too absorbed in their inner conversations. And, of course, that is Schulman's point. Eva's and Stew's stories begin to intersect when David and Joe are ultimately outed by Stew -- a police detective takes advantage of Stew's confusion and fear and coerces him into confessing their trysts. David is arrested, and Eva is invited to join the legal team that will attempt to defend him. As she and her legal partner organize their defense, Stew's nightmare intensifies. Rather than receive any form of compassion from his family, he discovers that they are totally clueless and even scared of him. They want him out of the house, which of course fills him with enormous fear. With David and Joe out of the picture now, he literally has nowhere to go. In desperation, he attempts to forge a bond with his young nephew, Viktor, with disastrous results. It is another scene that involves loud exchanges, but absolutely no real communicatio

"Gay children need parents, too, and sometimes gay adults are the only ones who can give that kind o

The 'child' of the (ironic) title is Stew, a typical, lonely, 15 year old gay male living with his self-involved parents. He meets a gay male couple though the internet and starts building a full relationship (including sexual elements) with them. For a brief moment he believes that he has found happiness and acceptance - perhaps life is worth living after all? On the way back from a visit with them, he is the subject of a entrapment scene is a public toilet; arrested, he is taken to a police station whereupon he is manipulated into revealing where he had been. The gay couple are arrested on charges of 'child abuse', and Stew's nightmare begins: "He was surrounded by walls, his family, the police. No one was flexible. No one had a reasonable explanation for their behavior, and no one had to." A variety of characters and sub-plots populate this novel, with particular precedence given to Eva, a lesbian woman and a lawyer, who becomes involved in defending one of the partners in the gay couple detained on 'child abuse' charges. Indeed, the novel focuses not so much on the subsequent legal processes, but rather on the background cast of characters involved: Eva; her relationship with her partner Mary; Stew's family; the social worker assigned to Stew; and Hockey, an HIV+ lawyer working alongside Eva. This broader perspective enables the author to capture her primary theme: exposing the delusions that individuals create in order to satisfy their own egoistic desires. Consequently, the various characters' façades are stripped away, and the author presents a myriad of iconoclastic images: the child who is not merely 'a child' but a human, with rights and desires; the parents whose 'love' for their child is instead a need to propagate their own sense of self-worth; the child welfare infrastructure that does not genuinely care about the child; the lesbian social activist who desires love more than a successful outcome; the law enforcement officers whose hatred of their perceived enemy far eclipses any professed concern for the child's well-being; the HIV+ lawyer who is unsympathetic to any hint of weakness in others; the judicial system that allows a young male to bear criminal responsibility for his actions but denies him the right to love freely. Clearly this perspective will be unsettling to readers unused to confronting the darker reality of life. Nevertheless - and indeed, for this reason - the novel deserves the broadest possible audience. 'The Child' is an important work; as with Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', it is concerned to challenge the cozy self/group delusions that mainstream society most desires to cherish - and accordingly serves as a courageous assertion of independent writing, which is all-too-often suppressed in favor of promulgating society's false idealism. Sarah Schulman's novel is written with fluid, fearless originality, and is highly recommended.

Great approach to a controversial subject.

Stewie Mulcahey is a shy and troubled 15 year old gay boy from a dysfunctional home, who finds his only acceptance and comfort in the arms of David, a 39 year old man he met through an internet chat room. When his parents find out, Stewie is coerced by the police into testifying against the adult, although the boy insists he always initiated their contacts and was not forced into anything. His home life deteriorates further, with his parents and sister making it clear they want him out of the house, and they become upset when a social worker refuses to send him to a juvenile detention home. The situation escallates until an episode in which he is charged as an adult with murder in the death of his young nephew, whom they suspected him of molesting. One of the two attorneys for David, the adult charged in the molestation, is Eva Krasner, who is simultaneously going through some tough times with his lover, Mary, and facing a possible health crisis. She is working with gay attorney Hockey Notkin, who seems a bit bitter and distracted since losing his lover to AIDS. They struggle with the dilemma of creating a defense for David without simultaneously pushing more of the blame on Stewie who, while he is not their client, they feel is more of a victim of his family's and the justice system's homophobia than anything else. Sarah Schulman is a well-known lesbian writer who has a reputation for edgy works, and this is no exception. She tackles a difficult and controversial subject head on, but with a skillfully light touch that doesn't prejudge or challenge the opinions of the reader. The novel reads like a crime mystery, and catches the readers attention every step of the way.