![]() ![]() ![]() Humbert Humbert famously declares as Nabokov's novel opens: "You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Tampa resembles Lolita superficially at best: both are about compulsive paedophiles, but the similarity ends there. Tampa arrives flanked by quotations that liken it to Lolita, an inevitable comparison that doesn't do it any favours. When Celeste isn't having spectacular sex with boys, she is masturbating or submitting to sex she finds nauseating with her husband or other adult men. What comes in between is sex, lots of it, explicit and raw, a pornographic parody of the teacher in loco parentis ("I rinsed and patted him dry before I started giving him his very first rim job"). Eventually the secret comes out, and predictable consequences ensue. ![]() They proceed to have sex constantly – in the classroom, his house, her car. She is driven by a sexual obsession so all-consuming that it determines her every thought and action: all she wants is sex with pubescent boys, all the time.Because she is beautiful and not unintelligent, selecting her prey with care (requirements include disengaged parents and an unwillingness to boast), she easily seduces a boy named Jack. In reality, however, the only education Celeste cares about is carnal. She has chosen to devote her life to the education of 14-year-old boys, ostensibly teaching English. T he plot of Tampa, a debut novel by Alissa Nutting, is simple: Celeste Price – 26 years old, married, affluent, gorgeous – has just been hired as a schoolteacher in suburban Tampa, Florida. ![]()
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