Little Children

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.

Born in Summit, New Jersey, Tom Perrotta developed his eye for the world amidst the songs of Bruce Springsteen and beneath the glow of dark American movies - The Graduate, Chinatown, Taxi Driver - that graced the Sixties and Seventies. He earned a B.A. in English from Yale University and then received an M.A. in English/Creative Writing from Syracuse University. In 1994, Tom published his first book, Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies, a collection of shorts stories that The Washington Post called "more powerful than any other coming-of-age novel."

On the heels of Bad Haircut came two more novels focused on the clash of adolescence and adulthood: The Wishbones and Election, both published to much acclaim, though it was the latter that would prove to be his breakout success. A high school election gone awry, a teacher-student affair, teenagers on the verge of adulthood - Election was a captivating satire that was instantly picked up for film and turned into a popular Paramount movie starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon.

Following Election, Tom continued to write about the humor and delight in everyday social interactions, only he shifted his focus to an older - though just as troubled - cast of characters: first with Joe College, a comic journey into the dark side of higher education, love, and food service; and then most recently with Little Children, his most ambitious novel that explores the psychological depths beneath the surface of suburbia. Little Children has been chosen for numerous "Best Books of 2004" lists - including The New York Times Book Review, Newsweek, National Public Radio, and People magazine - and has garnered tremendous praise from all fronts, calling Tom "an American Chekhov" (New York Times) and a "rare writer equally gifted at drawing people's emotional maps...and creating sidesplitting scenes" (People).

Currently, Tom lives with his wife and two children in Belmont, Massachusetts, and is working on the screenplay for Little Children writer/director Todd Field (In the Bedroom), as well as a second screenplay with ex-Frasier writer, Rob Greenberg. He plans to start his next novel when he completes those projects.