Lori Drew, left, and her daughter, Amanda, are angry about a reading assignment that includes profanity and references to bestiality.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

CUMBERLAND — A high school reading assignment that contains profanity and references to bestiality has angered a Cumberland parent so much she has complained to the superintendent, the School Committee and the state Department of Education. She wants the essay removed from the curriculum and the teacher disciplined.

So far, that hasn’t happened. Will Clarke, the author of the offending eight-page essay, “How to Kill a Boy That No One Liked,” doesn’t see what the fuss is all about.

Clarke, who has two novels published by Simon & Schuster, The Worthy: A Ghost’s Story (2006) and Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles: A Spy Novel (Sort of) (2005), says the essay is about his own high school experience in Shreveport, La., where he was a loner who was constantly picked on until he reinvented himself.

“It’s about a pivotal point in my high school experience when I won an election and stopped being a loser in people’s eyes,” the Dallas-based author said in a telephone interview.

“If anything, the essay is redemptive. That’s what literature does. It gets people to try on another person’s skin and see what it’s like,” he said. “It’s totally appropriate for high school kids.”

Lori Drew first saw the essay when her 15-year-old daughter, Amanda, a freshman at Cumberland High, brought it home as part of a homework assignment for a reading class early this month. The assignment was to read the essay and come up with as many questions as possible.

“I was shocked with the profanity and explicit sex acts with animals,” she told the School Committee last week as she handed out copies of the essay to members of the audience and the committee.

Superintendent of Schools Donna Morelle agreed to let Amanda opt out of the assignment and left Drew with the impression that the essay itself would be pulled.

But the assignment was never eliminated. The superintendent could not be reached to explain the apparent misunderstanding.

“She lied to me,” Drew said after the meeting.

“I want it out of the school, and I want the School Department to admit that it was wrong. If it had been a student who said those words, they would have been punished. I want the same level of accountability from this teacher.”

Although the committee did not respond to Drew’s comments at its last meeting, Chairman Frederic C. Crowley said later that he thinks the parent’s concerns about the essay are valid but he still stands by Morelle’s decision not to pull the essay from the curriculum.

He noted that there are other assigned readings at Cumberland High that use profanity, including J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, and these works are assigned by teachers because they touch upon themes important for adolescents.

“It’s no Catcher in the Rye, and there is language that is offensive in the essay, but no more than what kids are exposed to in music, video games, television shows and movies,” he said. “I think it’s a very appropriate decision. [Morelle] handled the issue immediately and she handled it correctly.”

Clarke’s essay is part of a compilation of 25 short stories and essays in When I was a Loser: True Stories of (Barely) Surviving High School, published this year by Free Press, that is about defining moments of high school and adolescence.

In the essay, Clarke describes himself as an unpopular teen who annoyed students and teachers and spent much of his time in the library. He enumerates the many ways that his peers teased and ridiculed him. Then, Clarke is convinced he could become popular by winning a coveted spot on the student council. Inspired by a book on subliminal advertising, he slips the word “S-E-X” into his campaign posters. He wins and is embraced by the “in” crowd.

The profanity and references to sex with animals is contained in the part of the essay in which he summarizes what he learned from the book.

But it’s not just Clarke’s essay that Drew complains about. She says the entire compilation is filled with essays about high school that are as humorous as they are lewd. One essay details how in high school one woman rationalized her secret sexual promiscuity and her image as a good Christian girl.

“I’m not saying it isn’t a good book. But read the back cover. It says this book is ‘for anyone that has ever been a teenager.’ Past tense,” she said. “The point is that it is a great book to bring you back to your high school years. It’s fine for adults to reminisce. But my daughter is 15 years old. She’s never heard of people having sex with dogs.”

The author, who was profiled by The New York Times Book Review last year, disagrees. “It’s fairly innocuous. The story is not to titillate. Not at all. Nothing that I write is going to ruin a kid’s mind,” he said.

Clarke sympathized with the teacher who assigned the reading.

“I applaud her for trying to teach it because she obviously saw what I was trying to do,” he said. “She’s the real hero in this. She was trying to do the right thing. She was probably trying to find something that resonated with her students. There’s no teacher that gets into the profession trying to corrupt kids.”

The teacher’s reasoning for selecting Clarke’s essay could not be determined because district officials have declined to identify her.

Drew said she has since chosen to remove her daughter from the reading class, but the district has been unable to find another reading class that fits her schedule.

Her daughter now assists in the school guidance department to fill in the time, says Drew, and she will receive an ‘A’ for the course so long as she reports to work.

“But,” Drew adds, “she’s not doing any reading.”

pmarcelo@projo.com