Sarah Schulman Literature and Fiction English

e-Book The Child: A Novel download

by Sarah Schulman

ISBN: 0786718668
ISBN13: 978-0786718665
Language: English
Publisher: Carroll & Graf; First Edition edition (April 20, 2007)
Pages: 304
Category: Literature and Fiction
Subategory: LGBT

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ePub size: 1600 kb
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Rating: 4.7
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Acclaimed author Sarah Schulman (Rat Bohemia, Shimmer) returns with an absorbing novel about a teenager convicted of murder after seeing his online lover charged with pedophilia.

Acclaimed author Sarah Schulman (Rat Bohemia, Shimmer) returns with an absorbing novel about a teenager convicted of murder after seeing his online lover charged with pedophilia. Structured like a classic novel of legal suspense.

Books for People with Print Disabilities. Internet Archive Books.

by. Schulman, Sarah, 1958-. Young gay men, Dysfunctional families, Murder. Publisher Books to Borrow. Books for People with Print Disabilities. Uploaded by Lotu Tii on June 17, 2013. SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata). Terms of Service (last updated 12/31/2014).

Sarah Miriam Schulman (born July 28, 1958) is an American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, gay activist, and AIDS historian

Sarah Miriam Schulman (born July 28, 1958) is an American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, gay activist, and AIDS historian. She is a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at College of Staten Island (CSI) and a Fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities. She is a recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award. Schulman was born on July 28, 1958 in New York City

I took Sarah Schulman's book "The Child" with me on a little August retreat to the northern shore of Lake Superior.

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.

Schulman crafts a piercing investigation into desire, mores, and the law. -Publishers Weekly An important work of American literature. This novel explores the parameters of queer teen sexuality against a backdrop of hysteria and sanctioned homophobia, based on the 1997 sexual assault and murder of an eleven-year-old boy by a fifteen-year-old.

Sarah Schulman hasn't had a novel published for quite a while - in the afterword she explains what happened to delay this one, and what finally got it published

Sarah Schulman hasn't had a novel published for quite a while - in the afterword she explains what happened to delay this one, and what finally got it published. Unfortunately, immediately after it was published, the publisher went out of business, so chances are this book will not get the attention it deserves.

He was still angry about having to learn the computer, but the Mulcahey family’s case made it finally essential

He was still angry about having to learn the computer, but the Mulcahey family’s case made it finally essential. What Wisotscky found on the Internet shocked him, in spite of forty years as a mental. health professional and twenty years as County Family Counselor for Van Buren Township. The first truly upsetting thing that Wisotscky uncovered was the Hairy Chest Page. This was a site for homosexual men, and, presumably, heterosexual women, with advanced fetish compulsion toward men with hairy chests

Maggie Terry" published by The Feminist Press. Novelist · 11 September 2018 to present · New York, New York. A new novel of murder and intrigue. Performance Space New York. Curator of First Mondays Reading Series · 1 September 2018 to present · New York, New York.

Acclaimed author Sarah Schulman (Rat Bohemia, Shimmer) returns with an absorbing novel about a teenager convicted of murder after seeing his online lover charged with pedophilia. Structured like a classic novel of legal suspense, The Child explores what happens when Stew, a lonely fifteen-year-old boy, looks for and finds an adult boyfriend online. In short order his lover is arrested in an Internet pedophilia sting and Stew’s world is turned upside down. He’s exposed to his family and community, leaving the outcast to fend for himself against forces intent on his destruction. Desperate and enraged, the confused Stew murders his nephew in a panic. Schulman’s novel considers the impact of these events on all those involved — from the parents of the murdered child, to Stew’s staunchly Catholic parents, and the attorneys working on his case. Carefully untangling the actions of an isolated teenager denied a natural outlet for his feelings during a critical time in his life, The Child is a haunting meditation on isolation and the prejudices of culture and family.

Comments:

Vishura

After reading Schulman's books, I always feel more sane for understanding the world we live in as I do. If you are reading reviews, you may think that The Child is about "a controversial subject," that is, pederasty. I think this book is about another contorversial subject, and that is how fear and lies make us crazy. It is about how fear of women and gays and artists spin lies about us. It is how close each of us are to reaching across those fears and lies and coming to love and reconciliation. The good outcome is so close to us. And yet, in this world we live in, our loved ones choose again and again to believe the lies and remain in a delusional bubble of fear.

And that is why I loved this book. Why it gave me hope. To know that I am not alone in being optimistic, in how if we stand in our courage, we can reach across and understand why our loved ones have hurt us; why we have hurt those we love, and find connection and love, and belonging.

Delirium

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.

Rageseeker

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.