- Gebundene Ausgabe: 368 Seiten
- Verlag: St. Martin's Press; Auflage: 1 (Februar 2004)
- Sprache: Englisch
- ISBN-10: 0312315716
- ISBN-13: 978-0312315719
- Größe und/oder Gewicht: 21,1 x 14 x 3,3 cm
- Durchschnittliche Kundenbewertung: 2.7 von 5 Sternen Alle Rezensionen anzeigen (3 Kundenrezensionen)
- Amazon Bestseller-Rang: Nr. 947.662 in Englische Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Englische Bücher)
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Little Children: A Novel
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Produktbeschreibungen
From Booklist
Perrotta sent up the foibles of high-schoolers in Election (1998) and of Ivy Leaguers in Joe College (2000). Here, in warmly humorous prose, he takes on the thirtysomething parents of young children. Handsome stay-at-home dad Todd, dubbed the Prom King by the moms at the playground, secretly grooves to Raffi and loves staging horrific train wrecks with his young son; he has flunked the bar exam twice and can sense his wife's increasing exasperation, but he can't force himself to study. Although Sarah has a Ph.D. in feminist studies, she is completely flummoxed by her toddler's temper tantrums and her husband's seeming infatuation with a pornographic Web site. Sarah and Todd fall into an unlikely affair, and although they know they are acting out of desperation to escape problems on the home front, their relationship is full of electric sex and genuine emotion. Perrotta, with a light but sure hand, expertly sketches the angst of the playground set and then amps up his material with a subplot involving a child molester. A fast-reading, wholly engaging novel. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Pressestimmen
"Little Children offers a generous serving of laugh-out-loud moments... Perrotta is an astute student of 21st-century suburban life. He skewers--with a light touch--everything from book clubs to personal ads to mothers worried about getting their 4-year-olds into Harvard. At the same time he locates the humanity in even the most repugnant characters. Perrotta knows the white-picket fence dream is just that. Life is disappointing, sure, but a little bit of breezily sardonic humor goes a long way to ease the pain."
- USA Today
"The voice is so key to what's so good about the book...Little Children is certainly Perrotta's most ambitious book...it marks a leap for Perrotta, a suggestion that there may be bigger books inside him. It is also that rarity, a book that understands the mature wisdom of compromise without denying any of the accompanying melancholy."
- Charlie Taylor, Salon.com
"Perrotta isn't breaking new ground when he reveals that American suburbs are petri dishes of ennui and alienation. But the he shows admirable zeal in prosecuting the case, and he comes as close as anybody to answering a not unimportant question: If the suburbs are the perfect community, the incarnation in grass and sunlight of American affluence, then how come life there is such hell?"
- Time Magazine
"In this satirical suburban novel...Perrotta's unsparing eye registers sullen teenage skateboarders, a vicious amateur football league and a women's book group discussing "Madame Bovary" over goat cheese and Chardonnay...readers will await the inevitable crash with horrified glee."
- Newsweek Magazine (4/5/04)
"The eponymous children in this satirical novel are actually adults who, chafing at the burdens of parenthood, try to re-create their unencumbered youth...The humor is sometimes cruel, but Perrotta never betrays the complexity of his characters."
- The New Yorker (3/29/04)
"Like the author's Election, this book tackles serious topics--like adultery and even pedophilia--with a surprisingly light tone."
- US Weekly Magazine (3/29/04)
"Big Important Book of the Month...Perrotta wisely refuses to condescend to the world he satirizes, and his masterful perspective provides the reader with a breezy omniscience over the character's failures in life. The book is disarmingly funny but rueful...the book's screenplay speed makes it infinitely readable. Little Children is a brave novel...engrossing, compassionate."
- Esquire Magazine
"What a wicked joy it is to welcome Little Children, Tom Perrotta's extraordinary novel...a sterling comic contribution...raises the question of how a writer can be so entertainingly vicious and yet so full of fellow feeling. Bracingly tender moments stud Perrotta's satire...at once suspenseful, ruefully funny and ultimately generous...What is Tom Perrotta but an American Chekov whose characters even at their most ridiculous seem blessed and enobled by a luminous human aura?"
- Will Blythe, New York Times Book Review (3/14/04)
"Little Children will be Mr. Perrotta's breakthough popular hit...poignantly funny...What distinguishes it from run-of-the-mill suburban satire is its knowing blend of slyness and compassion."
- Janet Maslin, New York Times Review (3/8/04)
"The cast is so real that book groups will have a blast comparing people they know to the ones in the book. 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 (3/15/04)
"Tom Perrotta's Little Children made me laugh so hard I had to put it down...an effervescent new work...a gentle, sparkling satire."
- Entertainment Weekly (3/1/04)
"With Little Children Perrotta has moved into the suburbs with a wrecking ball. He has cooked up recipes of depravity that would curl Betty Crocker's hair. If good satire can generate a corrective jolt, this may be a deadly shock."
- Christian Science Monitor (3/2/04)
"darkly comic, with a mischievous eye for absurd and intimate detail...a virtuoso set."
- Washington Post Review
"With this, his fifth book, Tom Perrotta has to be considered one of our true genius satirists. Little Children is a great book. Hilarious (I haven’t laughed out loud so much over a book in years) but also deeply compassionate and, at times, terrifying. It’s both an indictment of, and an elegy to, that odd sociological construct known as suburban America. I was enthralled by every page, and damn if I didn’t find myself wishing I’d written it."
- Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River
- USA Today
"The voice is so key to what's so good about the book...Little Children is certainly Perrotta's most ambitious book...it marks a leap for Perrotta, a suggestion that there may be bigger books inside him. It is also that rarity, a book that understands the mature wisdom of compromise without denying any of the accompanying melancholy."
- Charlie Taylor, Salon.com
"Perrotta isn't breaking new ground when he reveals that American suburbs are petri dishes of ennui and alienation. But the he shows admirable zeal in prosecuting the case, and he comes as close as anybody to answering a not unimportant question: If the suburbs are the perfect community, the incarnation in grass and sunlight of American affluence, then how come life there is such hell?"
- Time Magazine
"In this satirical suburban novel...Perrotta's unsparing eye registers sullen teenage skateboarders, a vicious amateur football league and a women's book group discussing "Madame Bovary" over goat cheese and Chardonnay...readers will await the inevitable crash with horrified glee."
- Newsweek Magazine (4/5/04)
"The eponymous children in this satirical novel are actually adults who, chafing at the burdens of parenthood, try to re-create their unencumbered youth...The humor is sometimes cruel, but Perrotta never betrays the complexity of his characters."
- The New Yorker (3/29/04)
"Like the author's Election, this book tackles serious topics--like adultery and even pedophilia--with a surprisingly light tone."
- US Weekly Magazine (3/29/04)
"Big Important Book of the Month...Perrotta wisely refuses to condescend to the world he satirizes, and his masterful perspective provides the reader with a breezy omniscience over the character's failures in life. The book is disarmingly funny but rueful...the book's screenplay speed makes it infinitely readable. Little Children is a brave novel...engrossing, compassionate."
- Esquire Magazine
"What a wicked joy it is to welcome Little Children, Tom Perrotta's extraordinary novel...a sterling comic contribution...raises the question of how a writer can be so entertainingly vicious and yet so full of fellow feeling. Bracingly tender moments stud Perrotta's satire...at once suspenseful, ruefully funny and ultimately generous...What is Tom Perrotta but an American Chekov whose characters even at their most ridiculous seem blessed and enobled by a luminous human aura?"
- Will Blythe, New York Times Book Review (3/14/04)
"Little Children will be Mr. Perrotta's breakthough popular hit...poignantly funny...What distinguishes it from run-of-the-mill suburban satire is its knowing blend of slyness and compassion."
- Janet Maslin, New York Times Review (3/8/04)
"The cast is so real that book groups will have a blast comparing people they know to the ones in the book. 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 (3/15/04)
"Tom Perrotta's Little Children made me laugh so hard I had to put it down...an effervescent new work...a gentle, sparkling satire."
- Entertainment Weekly (3/1/04)
"With Little Children Perrotta has moved into the suburbs with a wrecking ball. He has cooked up recipes of depravity that would curl Betty Crocker's hair. If good satire can generate a corrective jolt, this may be a deadly shock."
- Christian Science Monitor (3/2/04)
"darkly comic, with a mischievous eye for absurd and intimate detail...a virtuoso set."
- Washington Post Review
"With this, his fifth book, Tom Perrotta has to be considered one of our true genius satirists. Little Children is a great book. Hilarious (I haven’t laughed out loud so much over a book in years) but also deeply compassionate and, at times, terrifying. It’s both an indictment of, and an elegy to, that odd sociological construct known as suburban America. I was enthralled by every page, and damn if I didn’t find myself wishing I’d written it."
- Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River
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2 von 3 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Format:Gebundene Ausgabe
I quite enjoyed reading this book. It isn't breaking any new ground, but the characters were well drawn and their conflicts believable. Perrotta's style is easy to like - dry, humorous, sympathetic. The overall theme and tone is very much "Desperate Housewive"-ish - in a good way. It's a good Summer read.
3 von 10 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Format:Audio CD
Although this was a well-written book, I didn't care for most of the characters.
Dramatis Personae:
Sarah, an immature bisexual housewife who is disinterested in her 3-year-old daughter, Lucy. Lucy is still in diapers and her language appears to be behind that of her peers. You just want to kick Sarah in the shins. Sarah's husband is an ineffectual boorish oaf who becomes addicted to cyber porn and even leaves Sarah for a cyber porn model. He was previously married and has adult twin daughters from that first union.
Todd: The only likable adult character. He is married to a ruthless, driven woman who hounds him to take the Bar exam. He appeases his wife by pretending to take the exam. To his credit, he finds joy in spending time with his son, 3-year-old Aaron. Todd's son and Lucy's daughter are developmentally on the same plane. In time, Todd and Sarah become lovers after Sarah boldy flirts with and kisses Todd on the playground in plain sight of the other playground mothers. This comes as no real surprise to readers.
Mary-Ann was truly for the birds and was just so impossible to like. You want to kick her good and hard as well. A ruthless barracuda, she schedules intimacy with the impersonal precision of a board (or in this case bored) meeting. She is a gold digger, having married Louis only for his bank account, stocks and portfolio. I didn't like the way she had her pre-schoolers go to bed at 7:30 just so as to make HER life easier. She did not appear to be interested in her son and daughter and had all the loving warmth of a clinical report or financial statement.
Larry - a thuggish boor of a cop who started an evening football team. He also hounds the town misfit, Ronnie and, like Sarah's husband is the father of twins. Unlike the boor/bore Sarah married, Larry's twins are boys and he is not fully divorced. He makes horrific blasphemous comments about the Catholic church and Scripture which made his character all the more disgusting in my eyes. He was a crass, boorish oaf.
May - Elderly mother to Ronnie, a known pedophile. The only truly sympathetic character in this book.
Naturally you have to have an odd duck, so enter Ronnie. A confirmed pedophile who has been released from prison, he lives with his elderly mother and is made the town target. As reprehensible as pedophilia is, hounding and abusing people is no improvement. It just perpetuates a harmful cycle.
I found the way Todd's friend, a football wannabe just as reprehensible for targeting Ronnie, because what he was doing was harming the pedophile's mother. He gets Todd to join in a night football team and after games, he takes Todd on runs to harass Ronnie. They leave a sack of burning dog droppings on the man's stoop; they harass him verbally and whenever they see him in public, they hound and grill him. Naturally this takes a toll on May, Ronnie's mother. I was just repelled by what those bullies put her through.
The book is rather bland and predictable. Todd and Sarah become a couple; Sarah's bored husband finds life on the internet and in the arms of his porn models preferable to marriage to a fool in surburbia and the other playground moms limp through this tired tale. One can only feel bad for May and these literary children as they are the ones who get shafted in this story.
1 von 8 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich
Format:Taschenbuch
Although this was a well-written book, I didn't care for most of the characters.
Dramatis Personae:
Sarah, an immature bisexual housewife who is disinterested in her 3-year-old daughter, Lucy. Lucy is still in diapers and her language appears to be behind that of her peers. Sarah's husband is an ineffectual boorish oaf who becomes addicted to cyber porn and even leaves Sarah for a cyber porn model. He was previously married and has adult twin daughters from that first union. You just want to kick Sarah in the shins.
Todd: The only likable adult character. He is married to a ruthless, driven woman who hounds him to take the Bar exam. He appeases his wife by pretending to take the exam. To his credit, he finds joy in spending time with his son, 3-year-old Aaron. Todd's son and Lucy's daughter are developmentally on the same plane. In time, Todd and Sarah become lovers after Sarah boldy flirts with and kisses Todd on the playground in plain sight of the other playground mothers. This comes as no real surprise to readers.
Mary-Ann was truly for the birds and was just so impossible to like. You just want to kick her as well. A ruthless barracuda, she schedules intimacy with the impersonal precision of a board (or in this case bored) meeting. She is a gold digger, having married Louis only for his bank account, stocks and portfolio. I didn't like the way she had her pre-schoolers go to bed at 7:30 just so as to make HER life easier. She did not appear to be interested in her son and daughter and had all the loving warmth of a clinical report or financial statement.
Larry - a thuggish boor of a cop who started an evening football team. He also hounds the town misfit, Ronnie and, like Sarah's husband is the father of twins. Unlike the boor/bore Sarah married, Larry's twins are boys and he is not fully divorced. He makes horrific blasphemous comments about the Catholic church and Scripture which made his character all the more disgusting in my eyes. He was a crass, boorish oaf.
May - Elderly mother to Ronnie, a known pedophile. The only truly sympathetic character in this book.
Naturally you have to have an odd duck, so enter Ronnie. A confirmed pedophile who has been released from prison, he lives with his elderly mother and is made the town target. As reprehensible as pedophilia is, hounding and abusing people is no improvement. It just perpetuates a harmful cycle.
I found the way Todd's friend, a football wannabe just as reprehensible for targeting Ronnie, because what he was doing was harming the pedophile's mother. He gets Todd to join in a night football team and after games, he takes Todd on runs to harass Ronnie. They leave a sack of burning dog droppings on the man's stoop; they harass him verbally and whenever they see him in public, they hound and grill him. Naturally this takes a toll on May, Ronnie's mother. I was just repelled by what those bullies put her through.
The book is rather bland and predictable. Todd and Sarah become a couple; Sarah's bored husband finds life on the internet and in the arms of his porn models preferable to marriage in surburbia and the other playground moms limp through this tired tale. One can only feel bad for May and these literary children as they are the ones who get shafted in this tired story.
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