There is a lot of suburban dysfunction literature floating out there right now (and I love so much of it), but few people do with quite the same snap as Tom Perrotta. I've been meaning to read Little Children for a while now, and after reading his novel The Abstinence Teacher earlier this summer, I fast-tracked it to the top of my list. I can say now that I do not regret this decision in the slightest.
Little Children is a strange book when one attempts to describe it in minimal terms. It's about two parents who engage in an affair with one another in an attempt to revive their dismal, unhappy existences. But it's also about a pedophile who moves into the very same neighborhood to live with his ailing mother, and the social ostracism which results. Sounds like a strange pitch, but the two narratives meld together in such a way that by novel's end it seems impossible to have told the story in its fullness while neglecting one of them.
Sarah and Todd are the two adulterers, young parents who never thought they'd find themselves bogged down with a child and all those other pesky grownup responsibilities. Their angst as individuals is typical, but their coming together is strange, emerging out of the blue and accelerating in a way that can only spell disaster in the end. I appreciated Perrotta's depiction for its realism, however semi-tragic it may appear: both Sarah and Todd believe that this affair is something they not only need but deserve, and both harbor resentment toward just about everyone in their lives outside the affair's bubble, including their children. Sarah in particular is downright annoyed with her daughter for much of the time we see them together, and while some might read that as too harsh, it's an unfortunate truth: some mothers just don't like their daughters, and sometimes it's for so small a crime as failing to fill a void for which they were never responsible. What is a bit wearing about Sarah and Todd's affair, however, is the depiction of their respective spouses. Sarah's husband Richard is a bit of a pervert but slowly evolves into a complete creep, almost forcing the reader to declare Sarah's adultery justifiable. Similarly, Todd's wife Karen is the family breadwinner and thus is cast as the obligatory workaholic spouse, who upon learning of the affair promptly becomes even more unlikeable. I for one didn't need all this extra convincing that Sarah and Todd had considerable motivation for their actions, but Perrotta seems to supply it more for the purpose of enriching the satire than anything else.
Ronnie McGorvey is the town's new pedophile-in-residence, and it's difficult to decide what is more disturbing: how creepy his every action, word, and mannerism is, or the fact that despite all this the relationship he has with his elderly mother makes them both sympathetic in a strange way. His mother is to be pitied, that much is clear, but what really enhances this part of the story is the way that, despite all of his horrible behavior, Ronnie does love her very much, and doesn't want to hurt her. Unfortunately, even this doesn't quite make his alleged kidnapping and murder of a little girl reconcilable.
One of the best things this novel has to offer is its insight into the spectrum of perception and judgment. Each of the characters plays his or her part in illustrating this, and showing that we misunderstand and misjudge others just about all the time. Sometimes we think people are much better than they are, sometimes we feel sure we know them and find out we don't at all, and sometimes they're even worse than we could have ever imagined. Little Children provides a sampling of each, and does it in a way that somehow still manages to leave the shadow of a smirk on your face.
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