Little Children - Softcover

Perrotta, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 031236282X ISBN 13: 9780312362829

Verlag: Griffin, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

A group of young suburban parents, including a handsome stay-at-home dad, a former feminist, an Internet surfer, and an over-structured mom, finds its sleepy existence shattered when a convicted child molester moves back into town and two of the parents have an affair. Reader's Guide included. Reissue. 250,000 first printing. (A New Line Cinema film, directed by Todd Field, releasing Fall 2006, starring Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connolly, & Patrick Wilson) (General Fiction)

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

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.





^

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.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

"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.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Bad Mommy

THE YOUNG MOTHERS WERE TELLING EACH OTHER HOW TIRED they were. This was one of their favorite topics, along with the eating, sleeping, and defecating habits of their offspring, the merits of certain local nursery schools, and the difficulty of sticking to an exercise routine. Smiling politely to mask a familiar feeling of desperation, Sarah reminded herself to think like an anthropologist. I'm a researcher studying the behavior of boring suburban women. I am not a boring suburban woman myself.

"Jerry and I started watching that Jim Carrey movie the other night?"

This was Cheryl, mother of Christian, a husky three-and-a-half-year-old who swaggered around the playground like a Mafia chieftain, shooting the younger children with any object that could plausibly stand in as a gun--a straw, a half-eaten banana, even a Barbie doll that had been abandoned in the sandbox. Sarah despised the boy and found it hard to look his mother in the eye.

"The Pet Guy?" inquired Mary Ann, mother of Troy and Isabelle. "I don't get it. Since when did passing gas become so hilarious?"

Only since there was human life on earth, Sarah thought, wishing she had the guts to say it out loud. Mary Ann was one of those depressing supermoms, a tiny, elaborately made-up woman who dressed in spandex workout clothes, drove an SUV the size of a UPS van, and listened to conservative talk radio all day. No matter how many hints Sarah dropped to the contrary, Mary Ann refused to believe that any of the other mothers thought any less of Rush Limbaugh or any more of Hillary Clinton than she did. Every day Sarah came to the playground determined to set her straight, and every day she chickened out.

"Not the Pet Guy," Cheryl said. "The state trooper with the split personality."

Me, Myself, and Irene, Sarah thought impatiently. By the Farrelly Brothers. Why was it that the other mothers could never remember the titles of anything, not even movies they'd actually seen, while she herself retained lots of useless information about movies she wouldn't even dream of watching while imprisoned on an airplane, not that she ever got to fly anywhere?

"Oh, I saw that," said Theresa, mother of Courtney. A big, raspy-voiced woman who often alluded to having drunk too much wine the night before, Theresa was Sarah's favorite of the group. Sometimes, if no one else was around, the two of them would sneak a cigarette, trading puffs like teenagers and making subversive comments about their husbands and children. When the others arrived, though, Theresa immediately turned into one of them. "I thought it was cute."

Of course you did, Sarah thought. There was no higher praise at the playground than cute. It meant harmless. Easily absorbed. Posing no threat to smug suburbanites. At her old playground, someone had actually used the c-word to describe American Beauty (not that she'd actually named the film; it was that thing with Kevin what's his-name, you know, with the rose petals). That had been the last straw for Sarah. After exploring her options for a few days, she had switched to the Rayburn School playground, only to find that it was the same wherever you went. All the young mothers were tired. They all watched cute movies whose titles they couldn't remember.

"I was enjoying it," Cheryl said. "But fifteen minutes later, Jimmy and I were both fast asleep."

"You think that's bad?" Theresa laughed. "Mike and I were having sex the other night, and I drifted off right in the middle of it."

"Oh, well." Cheryl chuckled sympathetically. "It happens."

"I guess," said Theresa. "But when I woke up and apologized, Mike said he hadn't even noticed."

"You know what you should do?" Mary Ann suggested. "Set aside a specific block of time for making love. That's what Lewis and I do. Every Tuesday night at nine."

Whether you want to or not, Sarah thought, her eyes straying over to the play structure. Her daughter was standing near the top of the slide, sucking on the back of her hand as Christian pummeled Troy and Courtney showed Isabelle her Little Mermaid underpants. Even at the playground, Lucy didn't interact much with the other kids. She preferred to hang back, observing the action, as if trying to locate a seam that would permit her to enter the social world. A lot like her mother, Sarah thought, feeling both sorry for her daughter and perversely proud of their connection.

"What about you?" It took Sarah a moment to realize that Cheryl was talking to her.

"Me?" A surprisingly bitter laugh escaped from her mouth. "Richard and I haven't touched each other for months."

The other mothers traded uncomfortable looks, and Sarah realized that she must have misunderstood. Theresa reached across the picnic table and patted her hand.

"She didn't mean that, honey. She was just asking if you were as tired as the rest of us."

"Oh," said Sarah, wondering why she always had so much trouble following the thread of a conversation. "I doubt it. I've never needed very much sleep."

 

Morning snack time was ten-thirty on the dot, a regimen established and maintained by Mary Ann, who believed that rigid adherence to a timetable was the key to effective parenting. She had placed glow-in-the-dark digital clocks in her children's rooms, and had instructed them not to leave their beds in the morning until the first number had changed to seven. She also bragged of strictly enforcing a 7 P.M. bedtime with no resistance from the kids, a claim that filled Sarah with both envy and suspicion. She had never identified with authority figures, and couldn't help sensing a sort of whip-cracking fascist glee behind Mary Ann's ability to make the trains run on time.

Still, as skeptical as she was of fanatical punctuality in general, Sarah had to admit that the kids seemed to find it reassuring. None of them complained about waiting or being hungry, and they never asked what time it was. They just went about the business of their morning play, confident that they'd be notified when the proper moment arrived. Lucy seemed especially grateful for this small gift of predictability in her life. Sarah could see the pleasure in her eyes when she came running over to the picnic table with the others, part of the pack for the first time all day.

"Mommy, Mommy!" she cried. "Snack time!"

Of course, no system is foolproof, Sarah thought, rummaging through the diaper bag for the rice cakes she could have sworn she'd packed before they left the house. But maybe that was yesterday? It wasn't that easy to tell one weekday from the next anymore; they all just melted together like a bag of crayons left out in the sun.

"Mommy?" An anxious note seeped into Lucy's voice. All the other kids had opened Ziploc bags and single-serving Tupperware containers, and were busy shoveling handfuls of Cheerios and Goldfish crackers into their mouths. "Where my snack?"

"I'm sure it's in here somewhere," Sarah told her.

Long after she had come to the conclusion that the rice cakes weren't there, Sarah kept digging through the diaper bag, pretending to search for them. It was a lot easier to keep staring into that dark jumble of objects than to look up and tell Lucy the truth. In the background she heard someone slurping the dregs of a juice box.

"Where it went?" the hard little voice demanded. "Where my snack?"

It took an act of will for Sarah to look up and meet her daughter's eyes.

"I'm sorry, honey." She let out a long, defeated sigh. "Mommy can't find it."

Lucy didn't argue. She just scrunched up her pale face, clenched her fists, and began to hyperventilate, gathering strength for the next phase of the operation. Sarah turned apologetically to the other mothers, who were watching the proceedings with...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Griffin
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 031236282X
• ISBN 13: 9780312362829
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 355
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: KreGa Onlinehandel GmbH; 4950000000000; info@krega-onlinehandel.de; ; Birkenweg 31; Brakel; 33034; Deutschland