Perrotta hits another home run

Anyone who's ever been bored to tears pushing their child on a swing for the umpteenth time will be amazed to discover how much drama Little Children can cull from the interaction between parents who meet regularly at their neighborhood playground. The novels gets inside the heads and explores the arrested development of more than a half dozen characters including Sarah, a formerly bisexual feminist trapped in a loveless marriage; Todd, a stay-at-home dad who is studying for the bar after two failed attempts and who is so handsome the moms at the playground call him "The Prom King"; May, the mother of a convicted child molester who's resettled into the neighborhood; Larry an ex-cop who mistakenly killed a local kid and who is now obsessed with tormenting the child molester; Richard, Sarah's husband, who's become obsessed with Internet sex; and Todd's wife Kathy, the beauty queen who needs to rescue her marriage after Sarah and Todd start an affair.

There are very funny scenes here -- Sarah walking in on her husband while he's pleasuring himself while sniffing panties he received through the mail from an Internet porn queen; Sarah getting her revenge against the neighborhood's Supermom Snob over a discussion of Madame Bovary at a ladies' book club meeting. Some of the most poignant moments come from the mundane details Perrotta can mine from the moments when people should feel transported -- Sarah smelling pool chlorine and thinking about all her pathetic previous rejections while she's ecstatic about making love to someone as handsome as the Prom King.

There's never a false note with any of the characters' interior monologues -- ranging from Sarah's angst over buying a bikini that will sufficently entice Todd to Todd's inability to understand why he's become obsessed with watching teenage skateboarders while he's avoiding studying for the bar. It's a great testimony to Perrotta's depth and range. He's often compared with Nick Hornby, but the humor here comes not so much from clever one liners, but rather the feelings of the characters. (That doesn't mean there aren't some very funny one-liners here, too. Several times I laughed out load reading the book). It all builds to an exciting climax at the very playground where the Little Children -- the kids, the parents who behave like children, and the man who's obsessed with them -- meet.

Terrific: Here's Why

This time around, Perrotta takes satirical aim at the stifling confinement of suburban middle-class existence. To a man, his characters are lost, utterly bewildered as to how they've landed in their unremarkable lives, saddled with spouses and mortgages and children. Having drifted, almost involuntarily, into adulthood, they suddenly snap awake, and begin a dismayed accounting of their lives, all facing the same choice: do they resign themselves to the lifelong tedium of the roles outlined for them by society, or risk the censure of family and friends by abandoning the façade of responsible adulthood and striking out alone after individual happiness? Perrotta's characters are likable and, on a modest scale, tragic; from Sarah's halfhearted forays into being a strong-minded, independent feminist to Mary Ann's hard-won Martha Stewart perfection, their very natures are what will dictate the course of their lives and their inevitable discontent.

Little Children is certainly a pleasure to read, with all of the sly humor and deft observation that Perrotta does so well. Whether it's the subtle jockeying for power among playground mothers, or the threadbare, joyless sexual relationship between long-married spouses, his prose is sparkling and clever. Surrounded by abundance and prosperity, free from any real hardship, the characters must invent reasons to be unhappy in order to give their lives dramatic shape; deliberating over which playground to take their children to, or which fruit juice is really the healthiest, only points up the futility and insignificance of their existence. There's plenty of inherent irony in the self-important, status-obsessed suburban lifestyle, and Perrotta mines it to the fullest - if you didn't know better, you might think the author himself had done time among backyard BBQs and afternoon play dates. This is a terrific read -- don't hesitate to pick up a copy! Another Amazon quick-pick recommendation is THE LOSERS CLUB by Richard Perez

My casting choices

Terrific book. One of my favorite movies is ELECTION, however I was just a tad disappointed with the book (which I read after seeing the movie). It wasn't that the book was bad, it's just that the movie was so great. Anyway, Perotta's latest book kicks ELECTION's butt. So, here are my casting ideas: Vince Vaughn for Todd (I know Brad Pitt's an obvious choice, but Vince hasn't done anything relatively serious in a while), Lili Taylor for Sarah, Phillip Seymour Hoffman for Ronnie (once again, a bit too obvious, but that's because he'd be perfect), Kate Beckinsale for Kathy, Will Smith for Larry (it wouldn't hurt to get a little bit of color into this story).