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The Child: A Novel
 
 
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The Child: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Sarah Schulman (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Carroll & Graf (20 April 2007)
  • ISBN-10: 0786718668
  • ASIN: B00119R68I
  • Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14.2 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars "Gay children need parents, too, and sometimes gay adults are the only ones who can give that kind of knowing love", 19 Jul 2007
By D. Elliot "Abolish the A.o.C." (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Child: A Novel (Hardcover)
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 behaviour, 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 (Gamble/CEOP) 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 cosy 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 favour of promulgating society's false idealism. Sarah Schulman's novel is written with fluid, fearless originality, and is highly recommended.
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