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Title: Little Children by Tom Perrotta ISBN: 0-312-31571-6 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.51 (43 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Is this what constitutes fast-reading literature?
Comment: I love books full of intellignet insights to the 21st century human condition... so long as they aren't written by people who are trying so damn hard to be GREAT writers. Mr. Perrotta just so happens to be a damn fine writer who never once tries to show off. Somehow, in the span of 350 pages, this novel deals with marriage, parenthood, children, sexuality, infidelity, financial realities, artistic and regular careers, lost childhoods, aging parents and declining health, vanity, sagging Catholicism, Internet porn, stay-at-home moms and dads, the fragile suburban community structure, and the deviant and mundane passage of another summer.
What this novel shows is that none of the people around you, not the career fast-trackers, not the artistically inclined and accomplished, not the ruggedly handsome nor the practiced beautiful, are leading perfect lives. It's brilliant how we come to understand that the ugly-duckling and the swan, the upper-middle class and the middle middle-class, envy each other while harboring identical insecurities.
I can't remember a novel so full of fascinating characters, good and bad, flawed and tragically funny, heart-achingly human, every single one of them. And if the saying, "the easier the read, the harder to write" is true, then Mr. Perrotta is a genius. This book sails along better than the latest John Grisham (which by the way just sucks) and yet it's full of insights, depth, honesty, moments of coveted elation and great sadness. I went to school with these people, I know these people and I saw myself in these pages.
As a man, 31 years old, married to a wonderful woman for 5 years, and flirting with first-time parenthood, I couldn't help feeling as if some of my most private thoughts were plucked directly from my brain and laced throughout this fine story. This is the kind of book that will send you flying off into startlingly clear reflections about how you got to this point in your life and where you are headed. It's rewarding if not always comfortable-- especially if you're honest with yourself. And yet, finishing the book, I felt a great sense of relief, the kind you have when you realize you're not the only person (or couple) in the world who longs for a return to innocence while the world around you grows darker every day.
The only other author I have read who possesses the ability to render every single scene so compelling and fresh is Colin Harrison, possibly the bigger, wilder, and more violent urban older brother to Mr. Perrotta's suburban (but no less authoritive) sharp-eyed and quick-tongued bard. Consider just one of the challenges he sets for himself-- to take on a character who is a convicted child molester and not resort to the stereotypes of tabloid monster or fallen saint, but to paint a man who is guilty and not getting any better, yet utterly human. You will never guess where this book is going to take you, and why would you even try? There are too many masterful depictions of the human animal gone astray here to worry about the climax (which in itself manages to be at once more mundane and majestic than you will expect). And oddly, among all the hilarious scenes involving sex and anger and sadness, it's the quiet scenes involving another 30 something man, watching a group of skateboarding teens whittle away their youth, that will stay with me for months and maybe years to come.
The only reason this book did not get a 5 star rating from me is... oh, ..., I convinced myself, I'm changing my rating from 4 to 5 stars. There's precious little else being published these days that even comes close.
Rating: 5
Summary: Perrotta hits another home run
Comment: 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.
Rating: 5
Summary: Suburban Angst at it's best!
Comment: I enjoyed this book so much. Being a 30 yr old mother of two young girls living in SUBURBIA HELL I could see these characters in my neighborhood. When I started getting towards the end of the story everything came together in such an unexpected way that I had to smile.
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Title: The Lucky Ones : A Novel by Rachel Cusk ISBN: 000716131X Publisher: Fourth Estate Pub. Date: 02 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Amateur Marriage: A Novel by Anne Tyler ISBN: 1400042070 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Aloft by Chang-Rae Lee ISBN: 1573222631 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: 08 March, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Time Traveler's Wife (Today Show Book Club #15) by Audrey Niffenegger ISBN: 1931561648 Publisher: MacAdam/Cage Publishing Pub. Date: 17 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Good Grief : A Novel by Lolly Winston ISBN: 0446533041 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 13 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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