From Publishers Weekly
Orwellian totalitarianism struggles with ingrained deviance in this uneven hallucinatory satire of moral, psychological and political conventions. As the result of his affair with a 12-year-old boy, a former teacher must undergo a panoply of bizarre rehabilitative treatments-therapy sessions in which he is naked and a bag is placed over his head, erotic film screenings he must attend with electrical apparatuses attached to his genitals, etc. Doctor-General Nicholas Nicholas, in charge of this regimen, inspires awe and loyalty in his patient (called Mr. uh, uh). But outside of his treatments, Mr. uh, uh enters an illicit underworld, frequenting performances by a banned drag queen, taking another young lover and halfheartedly joining a group of revolutionaries. Stadler (Landscape: Memory; The Dissolution of Nicholas Dee) writes with wit and precision, cleverly dramatizing the dialectical nature of social truths. But his treatment of the specific issue of child molestation is, uncharacteristically, obtuse and unconvincing. And, despite the novel's outlandish milieu, there is a disappointing staleness to its recycling of Big Brother. Author tour. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
In an unspecified country at an unspecified time, a sex offender tells us of the court-ordered "rehabilitation" for child molestation he has been ordered to undergo. Therapy sessions involve watching pornographic movies featuring a young boy (whom the narrator later meets) masturbating. During the films, the offender is attached to an instrument that measures and records sexual excitement and administers negative reinforcement. This, other aversive treatments, psychotherapy during which both patient and his "Doctor-General" wear bags but are otherwise unclothed, and a futuristic political situation evoke the tone and terror of Orwell's 1984. In the novel's world, drag is outlawed, yet the offender and prominent politicians seek out the exotic drag queen Lucrezia. The story really takes off when we learn that the young porno star and Lucrezia are members of a rebellious criminal faction, and a surprising revelation at the end of the book is a special treat. The pedophiliac protagonist's very frank narration is, however, as disturbing as it is well written, which perhaps commends the novel to only very inclusive adult fiction collections. Charles Harmon


From Kirkus Reviews
Despite his insight and lyricism, Stadler (The Dissolution of Nicholas Dee, 1993, etc.) can't keep this overambitious commentary on sex and the state from falling flat. At some time not far from now, in a town that could be anywhere, a male teacher is apprehended for making love with a 12-year-old boy. But one of the doctors evaluating his case, Doctor-General Nicholas Nicholas, is so moved by the beautiful descriptions in the teacher's unrepentant essays that he pursues an unusual path of rehabilitation whereby the teacher takes on a new identity in a new city. Mr. uh, uh, as the teacher comes to be called to protect his anonymity (``It's a hesitation, a failure to say a name''), becomes a writer who never writes, stays away from little boys, and tries to discover his ``place in the social scheme...the right relation of love and...politics.'' To make things clearer, his rehabilitators offer therapy sessions in which the Doctor-General and Mr. uh, uh undress and put paper bags on their heads (so they can be fully revealed yet never see each other); there are also conditioning sessions in which Mr. uh, uh watches pedophilic porno films accompanied by electric shock and noxious gases while trying not to foul the ``phallometer.'' (This proves difficult since Mr. uh, uh has decided that pain and passion are inextricably linked.) Mr. uh, uh takes on another identity as Mr. Sludge after he's recruited by a group of artisans who modify the faces of politicians. Stadler's tale is complicated, and the themes are sophisticated. He's clearly riffing off Nabokov, but this novel lacks the structural brilliance required to maintain control of the complex layers of identity and meaning. Intelligent, strange, and often beautiful. Not quite impotent, but less than satisfying. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
This extravagantly imagined tale chronicles the rehabilitation of a teacher who has had a love affair with a twelve-year-old boy. While the man's crime was to mistake molestation for love, his cure will partake of the same confusion: to help and rehabilitate him, the police and the doctors subject the teacher to increasingly bizarre forms of therapy. Called "an astonishment" by Dennis Cooper, The Sex Offender weds compelling mystery with comedy, satire, and politics.


From the Publisher
The controversial novel about an older man's infatuation with an adolescent boy, by the acclaimed author of Landscape: Memories and The Dissolution of Nicholas Dee.


From the Inside Flap
This extravagantly imagined tale chronicles the rehabilitation of a lapsed teacher who is guilty of having had a love affair with a twelve-year-old boy. While the man's crime was to mistake molestation for love, his cure will partake of the same confusion: in the name of love, the police and the doctors subject the teacher to increasingly bizarre forms of therapy. The Sex Offender is at once a burlesque of the State and an unmasking of the foundations on which our notions of love and psychological health are based. In lavish prose, it weds compelling mystery with comedy, satire, and politics. "Equal parts Kafka, Burgess, and Brazil, Matthew Stadler's novel is beautifully morbid. The eloquent, florid prose in which Mr. Uh Uh describes his passions gives him an overwrought nobility.... Stadler's narrative weaves in and out of humor, grandiosity, fantasy, and sentiment with rare grace and cleverness."--The Village Voice "A daring, controversial, necessary book."--Lynne Tillman "Stadler writes with wit and precision, cleverly dramatizing the dialectical nature of social truths."--Publishers Weekly Matthew Stadler is the author of Landscape: Memory, The Sex Offender, The Dissolution of Nicholas Dee, and Allan Stein. He is the recipient of Guggenheim and Ingram-Merrill fellowships and a Whiting Writer's Award. He is the literary editor of Nest magazine and senior writer for The Stranger.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Guilty of having had an affair with a 12-year-old boy, a male teacher is accused of having mistaken molestation with love, and is brutally "rehabilitated" by a therapy of similar molestation by police & doctors. A novel of politics, satire, & subversion.

FROM THE PUBLISHER