Tampa: A Novel

Alissa Nutting

Jul 2013 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

“In this sly and salacious work, Nutting forces us to take a long, unflinching look at a deeply disturbed mind, and more significantly, at society’s often troubling relationship with female beauty.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

In Alissa Nutting’s novel Tampa, Celeste Price, a smoldering 26-year-old middle-school teacher in Florida, unrepentantly recounts her elaborate and sociopathically determined seduction of a 14-year-old student.
 
Celeste has chosen and lured the charmingly modest Jack Patrick into her web. Jack is enthralled and in awe of his eighth-grade teacher, and, most importantly, willing to accept Celeste’s terms for a secret relationship—car rides after dark, rendezvous at Jack’s house while his single father works the late shift, and body-slamming erotic encounters in Celeste’s empty classroom. In slaking her sexual thirst, Celeste Price is remorseless and deviously free of hesitation, a monstress of pure motivation. She deceives everyone, is close to no one, and cares little for anything but her pleasure.
 
Tampa is a sexually explicit, virtuosically satirical, American Psycho–esque rendering of a monstrously misplaced but undeterrable desire. Laced with black humor and crackling sexualized prose, Alissa Nutting’s Tampa is a grand, seriocomic examination of the want behind student / teacher affairs and a scorching literary debut.

Ratings and reviews

I admit, after the first few chapters I contemplated not finishing this book, to just walk away in total absolute disgust. It is much like a train wreck, I was unable to stop looking. I finished the book, but I am glad it's over. This book will make you sick to your stomach but you won't be able to stop reading it.

This is the only book that has truly filled me with disgust. The narrator, Celest, acts and narrates the story like a psychopath. Though this book is highly disturbing, It's a very intense book you can't put down

This book is highly disturbing. It's not a light read for fun unless you have a serious problem. That said, the other reviews likening the book to a train wreck are apt--you just can't put it down. The main character is not a good person and the narrative wastes no time in letting you know this. There is no sympathy to be had for Celeste Price, and that's a good thing. If you can handle graphic descriptions of underage sex, though, I recommend this book. Who else was going to tell this story?

About the author

Alissa Nutting is an assistant professor of English at Grinnell College. She is the author of the story collection Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, as well as the novel Tampa.