Emily Danforth’s
The miseducation of Cameron Post.
Just one shade of criticism :
the teenage slang in what we could call Part II, i.e. after Cameron’s first
intimate friend goes away to a private boarding school in the East, and before
she, herself, is sent to a religious reform school. Slang of any kind ages too
rapidly. Ten years on, and no one can understand a word of it any more.
Apart from this mild reproach,
the novel (part autobiography ?) takes you by the throat. Cameron is not a
perfect child. Who is, or ever was ? But she is basically a nice girl. For most
couples, she would be a joy to have around. She is 12 at the start of the
novel, which is when she loses her parents in a car accident. It’s also the
time when she starts finding other girls attractive. Her first crush (they
never do more than kiss) goes away to boarding school.
As an orphan, she is placed
into the care of her aunt Ruth who, on the surface, is not a bad person, but
she is a religious nut. Poisoned by her intolerance, she sends Cameron to a
private boarding school ($9,000 a year in 1990 taken from Cameron’s
inheritance) where the staff will attempt to “cure” her of lesbian tendencies.
Cameron will meet some
interesting and colorful students (the staff call them “disciples”). Solid
friendships are forged among the kids. The core of the novel, however, is the
narration of all the efforts the school makes to change the children, and turn
them into something they are not. I’m not betraying any ending if I say that
the school will fail miserably, something the reader can sense from the start.
The sickening, smiling, unctuous approach of the teachers trying to “help” the
children creates an oppressive, stifling atmosphere not far from what you would
expect in a horror story. In fact, it is a horror story. One boy, the only one
who accepts to be “cured”, becomes so appalled by his “sins” that he attempts
to emasculate himself.
The reader suffers along with
the victims, but on the literary level it’s an oddly enjoyable suffering, kept
alive by the author’s talent.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post is yet another powerful indictment of a religion, supposedly the home of love,
charity and compassion, but in reality governed by control freaks obsessed with
victimless “crimes”.
