Little Children: A Novel - Hardcover

Perrotta, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312315716 ISBN 13: 9780312315719

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2004

Synopsis

Tom Perrotta's thirty-ish parents of young children are a varied and surprising bunch. There's Todd, the handsome stay-at-home dad dubbed "The Prom King" by the moms of the playground; Sarah, a lapsed feminist with a bisexual past, who seems to have stumbled into a traditional marriage; Richard, Sarah's husband, who has found himself more and more involved with a fantasy life on the internet than with the flesh and blood in his own house; and Mary Ann, who thinks she has it all figured out, down to scheduling a weekly roll in the hay with her husband, every Tuesday at 9pm. They all raise their kids in the kind of sleepy American suburb where nothing ever seems to happen-at least until one eventful summer, when a convicted child molester moves back to town, and two restless parents begin an affair that goes further than either of them could have imagined. Unexpectedly suspenseful, but written with all the fluency and dark humor of Perrotta's previous novels, Little Children exposes the adult dramas unfolding amidst the swingsets and slides of an ordinary American playground.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Perrotta is that rare writer equally gifted at drawing people's emotional maps...and creating sidesplitting scenes.  Suburban comedies don't come any sharper."--People Magazine
 
TOM PERROTTA's thirtyish parents of young children are a varied and surprising bunch.  There's Todd, the handsome stay-at-home dad, dubbed "The Prom King" by the moms at the playground, and his wife, Kathy, a documentary filmmaker envious of the connection Todd has forged with their toddler son.  And there's Sarah, a lapsed feminist surprised to find she's become a typical wife in a traditional marriage, and her husband, Richard, who is becoming more and more involved with an internet fantasy life than with his own wife and child.
 
"...poignantly funny... Little Children will be Mr. Perrotta's breakthrough popular hit..."
--The New York Times
 
"A virtuoso set of overlapping character studies...a greatly auspicious and instructive encounter with the dread world of maturity."
--The Washington Post
 
"Little Children made me laugh so hard I had to put it down...a precise and witty evocation of the sweet, mind-numbing routines and everyday marital conflicts...an effervescent new work."
--Entertainment Weekly
 
"...engrossing, compassionate..."
--Esquire
 
These parents raise their kids in the kind of quiet suburb where nothing ever seems to happen--until one eventful summer, when a convicted child molester moves back to town, and two parents begin an affair that goes further than either of them could have imagined. 

About the Author:

Tom Perrotta is the author of Bad Haircut, The Wishbones, Election, and Joe College. He lives in Belmont, Massachusetts.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0312315716
• ISBN 13: 9780312315719
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368