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Letter to the editor

An honest portrait of sexual abuse

At times troubling, Boy Toy examines woman as predator.

By Vikas Turakhia, Special to the Times
Published September 23, 2007

  Few people would celebrate the wedding between a man and the woman he seduced when he was 34 and she was his 13-year-old student. But when Mary Kay Letourneau married her former student, Entertainment Tonight paid for exclusive access to the event.

You see the disparity whenever such cases make headlines. With a young female victim, nearly everyone agrees the male perpetrator is a sexual predator. If an older woman victimizes a young male, the outcry is less adamant, and admitted culprits, such as Debra Lafave, may have the temerity to tell television viewers, "I'm not a sex offender."

Barry Lyga challenges this double standard in Boy Toy, a jarring novel examining the effects of such a relationship through the eyes of victim Josh Mendel. When he's in seventh grade, Josh's social studies teacher, Eve Sherman, engages him in a sexual relationship that leaves him in therapy and her in prison. Five years later, Josh is a high school senior with a bright future, a few close friends and a heap of unresolved issues, all complicated by Eve's release from jail.

Most of the novel deals with Josh as a senior, though we witness his experiences with Eve cross into forbidden territory through flashbacks. It's a fascinating portrait, disturbing in its honesty, complex in its psychology. For Josh, even hugging his mother causes "a weird feeling" - he's "too aware" of her breasts against his chest.

Boy Toy will be shelved with young adult titles, but Lyga aims for older teens and adults here. Though the sex scenes aren't gratuitous, they easily score an R rating. These are troubling passages, not just for the actions described, but also for how Eve traps her prey. Of course, other people are involved as well, and Lyga does a terrific job of showing how Josh's abuse spirals outward, affecting everyone around him. More important, though almost everyone feels culpable, Lyga makes clear who's guilty.

Vikas Turakhia is an English teacher in Ohio.

Boy Toy

By Barry Lyga

Houghton Mifflin, 410 pages, $16.95

[Last modified September 19, 2007, 15:36:47]