Perverse is the New Normal 
 Alissa Nutting's novel has the usual disclaimers: work of fiction, any resemblance to actual persons entirely coincidental, and so on. But why then call the book Tampa, when the physical setting barely features? Except that this is about a young female middle-school teacher who has sex with 14-year-old boys, and the most recent real-life case was indeed in the Tampa area. I will maintain the author's fiction by not mentioning that teacher's name here, but I must say that looking at the photos of her in her orange jump-suit grinning in the mug-shots and even during her trial,* I too might have been tempted to try a fictional exploration of what could be going on in such a person's mind. Only I don't think I would have dared to do it with the commitment that Nutting does, pedal to the metal and firing on all cylinders, and I would not have done it nearly as well. 
 In some ways, the book reminds me of 
 Cartwheel 
 by Jennifer DuBois, again with the usual disclaimers, but equally obviously based on the Amanda Knox murder case. That was a more complex book, with multiple viewpoints and some claim to explore deeper themes; Tampa is simpler, grabbing its story from the first page and running with it all the way to the end zone. It has no pretensions to Literature that I can see; but by the same token, it is not so easily compromised by inconsistent adherence to real events. But it is no 
 Lolita 
 either. Just look at the opening sentences (which see no need to quote): Nabokov's Humbert Humbert's ecstatic paean to pubescence versus Nutting's Celeste Price turning away from her husband in bed to pleasure herself in anticipation of meeting her new students the next day. 
 There will be many one-star reviews; there will probably be calls to ban the book from public libraries. Would-be readers should be warned that within pages, Celeste is marking her classroom with her bodily secretions like an animal in heat, and it goes on from there; the book contains the most outspoken first-person descriptions of female sexuality that I have ever read. Pornography? Probably--but if so, pornography in the manner of Henry Miller or Georges Battaille, with no holds barred. It is not coy, not titillating; rather than aiming to stimulate the reader, it almost sets out to disgust. For this reason, I could not call it manipulative--despite what the publishers are doing with that suggestive photo of a buttonhole on the paperback cover. 
 I was trying to observe my reactions as I was reading. Shock, certainly, then intrigue, then satiation. But then something else kicked in that I would not have expected: recognition. Before long, you almost forget the transgressive nature of the subject and just notice the things that are simply true, even in the context of normal sexuality: about boys, about women, about desire, about marriages, about teaching. The disturbing thing about the book is not the horror one feels for the alien behavior of a predatory monster, but how much one recognizes in one's own life, albeit never acted upon. One small example: it would be so much easier to accept if Celeste were a poor teacher, but actually she is a rather good one, with a real feel for literature and a gift for stimulating classroom discussion. Which puts me in mind of another recently notorious novel about a teacher who behaves better in the classroom than out of it: Alexander Maksik's You Deserve Nothing. 
 Rating? I found the book quite interesting, as I hope I have been able to show, and there is nothing tepid about it. But I did feel that Nutting was stronger in the first half than the second. Once the first relationship has been consummated, and the question "How will she get into this?" is replaced by "How can she get out of it?", Nutting seemed compelled to invent things to bring matters to a head, and the climaxes got increasingly bizarre. So only two stars for these aspects, though rounded up because the book itself is so unapologetically out there. 
 *(view spoiler)[ 
 I have since learned that Nutting was inspired (if that's the word) by a case in the early 2000 involving a woman whom she had known in high school in an entirely different part of the country. But her title must surely be an attempt to link it to the Tampa case I mentioned: that of Stephanie Ragusa. Google the photos of her; they are at once attractive, intriguing, and disturbing. 
 (hide spoiler)]