The Abstinence Teacher

"A sad-funny-touching story that looks at the frustrations and perils of life in suburbia through darkly-tinted, not rose-colored, glasses." —The New York Times

The Abstinence Teacher illuminates the powerful emotions that run beneath the placid surface of modern American family life, and explores the complicated spiritual and sexual lives of ordinary people. It is elegantly and simply written, characterized by the distinctive mix of satire and compassion that has become Tom Perrotta's trademark.


Stonewood Heights is the perfect place to raise children: it's got good schools, solid values and a healthy real estate market. Parents in the town are involved in their children's lives, and often in other children's lives, too—coaching sports, driving carpool, focusing on enriching experiences. Ruth Ramsey is the high school human sexuality teacher whose openness is not appreciated by all her students—or their parents. Her daughter's soccer coach is Tim Mason, a former stoner and rocker whose response to hitting rock bottom was to reach out and be saved. Tim's introduction of Christianity on the playing field horrifies Ruth, while his evangelical church sees a useful target in the loose-lipped sex ed teacher. But when these two adversaries in a small-town culture war actually talk to each other, a surprising friendship begins to develop.

"With abstinence programs and disputes over what can be taught in schools regularly making the front page, The Abstinence Teacher hits on prominent social fault lines." —People (four stars)
"A soul-searching comedy." —USA Today
"A mischievous bard of the 'burbs for the twenty-first century . . . Perrotta is an acute observer of social mores among the affluent middle class." —Entertainment Weekly