Less 'Lolita,' More Late-Stage Capitalism

"Whatever you might think you're going to get from the familiar setup of Jennette McCurdy's Half His Age (a lonely high-school girl in Anchorage begins an extremely questionable sexual relationship with her teacher), any presumptions are dispelled from the very first page. When Waldo, the teenage narrator of the novel, observes her boyfriend's "slimy tongue that loop-de-loops over and over like a carnival ride, mechanical and passionless," she's setting a tone: irreverent, graphic, bilious."

"McCurdy is much more interested in late capitalism than in Lolita. Waldo's world has long been poisoned by the microwavable meals her disinterested mother leaves out, the fast-fashion crop tops she orders that come with a cancer warning, the laptop she falls asleep clutching at 2 a.m., its unnatural heat "searing my ovaries." By the time she meets Mr. Korgy, her frowsy middle-aged creative-writing instructor, on page 11, she is already imprinted on the reader as a caustic force of anti-nature."

"Their relationship ensues through the slow erosion of boundaries, mostly instigated by her but sometimes by him. She masturbates using a bottle of tropical-fruit-flavored Tums while stalking his Instagram. He praises her writing and asks her to stay after class; he later invites her to dinner at his home with his wife. She sends him a thank-you email with her phone number."

Waldo, a ferocious and irreverent teenage narrator, inhabits a world shaped by convenience, consumerism, and private loneliness. Household microwavable meals, fast-fashion crop tops labeled with health warnings, and a laptop whose heat she fears fuse into a landscape of commodified existence. Waldo initiates a boundary-blurring sexual relationship with her middle-aged creative-writing instructor, escalating from attention and dinners to explicit encounters in closets, bedrooms, and hotels. The instructor appears soft and pitiable rather than predatory, while Waldo alternates guises to perform desire and agency. The narrative foregrounds late-capitalist textures and personal alienation over romanticized literary precedents.

Read at The Atlantic