Book Reflection: Little Children by Tom Perrotta
Bafflingly enjoyable book about a group of people all livign with some kind of regret - but none of whom takes any action toward changing it.
I read Little Children within a 14 hour period, putting it down only to sleep, and immediately reaching for it as soon as my eyes opened. It’s not that it was so gripping or spicy or action-packed, it’s none of those things really. It’s just REALLY well-written and easy to follow.
The story centers around Sarah and Todd, both stay-at-home parents in a sleepy suburb, both navigating parenthood with 3-year-olds and spouses with varying degrees on interest in their families, relationships and jobs. At the same time, convicted child molester, Ronnie, moves back to town with his aging mother.
Sarah is a 30ish mom who married in her late 20s to escape a shitty job at Starbucks and a life with increasingly less meaning. Her older husband Richard is more and more frequently checked out (WHY he is disassociating with his family is one of the more creative parts of the novel.) and Sarah finds herself stuck in Mommyland, wishing for any kind of stimulating cerebral discourse with women her age and situation, but instead dully listening to park convos around movies the other moms can’t remember the names of and how they never have sex any more.
What struck me most about this book was how every single person is suspended in regret - yearning and dreaming of more, of what they COULD be, yet taking zero action towards what they want and hingeing their hopes entirely on other people and outside circumstances to solve it.
I found their lives mirrored the sleepy blandness of the town (Which I can’t even remember the name right now) - There are multiple parts of the book that point out the stillness of the air, the heavy humidity right before a storm, and the random man on the beach who’s been trying in vain to launch a kite for his unimpressed children, “No breeze,” he laments. I felt like the characters in this book needed a strong breeze to blow through their stagnant lives and shake them into action.
Despite one of the main storylines in the book being around an illicit affair between Sarah and Todd (Not a spoiler, it’s literally on the book jacket.), none of them live with any passion. They’re described as obsessive and needing to see eachother when the inevitable weekend comes around, but there’s no transformation, excitement or description of enjoyment. Maybe I’ve been reading too many spicy novels with explicit sex scenes (Nah, you can never read too many of those.), but even in the description of their private moments, it all seemed so…lackluster.
It felt like Little Children was written during a pause in all of their lives - that ‘blip on the radar’ before immense change or shifts in clarity. Were they all significantly changed by each other? Even the ending was - uneventful.
I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy this book - I really did! I just think it’s fascinating that Tom Perotta wrote a captivating 355 pages about people who have absolutely no idea what to do with their lives. The movie tied things off in a much tidier knot, but the book holds nothing but questions for me.
Despite touching on themes of adultery, pedophilia, online pornography and polyamorous relationships, none of those were spotlights for me. What stuck with me all the way through is how HUMAN all of these people are.
Do I feel sorry for Ronnie, who has a disgusting and dangerous obsession with revealing his penis to unsuspecting blind dates and children? HELL NO. But it was interesting to see him written as a person (Yes, also a monster.) - he KNOWS what he’s doing is wrong, but he can’t stop. What should he do then?