Little Children

"[An] extraordinary novel about adultery and child-raising in a generic American suburb . . . At once suspenseful, ruefully funny, and ultimately generous . . . [Little Children] represents a sterling comic contribution to the growing literature of the Bad Mommy and the Bad Daddy . . . Perrota, the author of, most notably, Joe College and Election, takes a mean wet wipe to the sugary and unassailable encomiums to children the culture throws up . . . Sometimes it seems a little antiquated to praise an author for sympathizing with his characters, for treating them in their difficulties with a tenderness that few gods have shown their humans. The author as executioner feels more realistic, more modern. And it is standard to compare to Chekhov writers who do show such kindness. And yet with Little Children, what is Tom Perrotta but an American Checkhov whose characters even at their most ridiculous seem blessed and ennobled by a luminous human aura?"—Will Blythe, The New York Times Book Review

"Perrotta deftly combines the darkness of A. M. Homes with the archness of Updike in this incisive novel, by turns wickedly funny and deeply poignant."—The Baltimore Sun

"Perrotta wisely refuses to condescend to the world he satirizes, and his masterful perspective provides the reader with a breezy ominiscience over the characters' failures in life. The book is disarmingly funny but rueful . . . A brave novel."—Esquire

"This absorbing, entertaining, astutely drawn, and sometimes hilarious novel deserves much praise."—Virginia Quarterly Book Review

"Satire [that gives us] Perrotta's take on the gnawing dissatisfactions of family life, the tyrannical control small kids exert over their parents . . . and the inescapable sense that there is something better out there. But, as you'd expect from a writer who's shown the generosity Perrotta has, it's compassionate satire. Little Children is a withering take on suburbia, but—and this is what differentiates it from all the other withering takes on suburbia—its view is from the inside . . . The voice is key to what's so good about [this] book . . . Little Children is certainly Perrotta's most ambitious book."—Salon

"Little Children is a skilled and mature study . . . Filled with credible characters wrestling with that time in their lives when they sacrifice their ambitions for their children . . . What is most admirable is Perrotta's feel for his subject, conveyed without condescension."—Philadelphia Inquirer

"Little Children is deft, satisfying social satire. It nudges Perrotta out of the category of talented-but-lightweight writers, into a league of quietly remarkable writers more comparable to Flaubert than [Nick] Hornby."—Montreal Mirror

"Perrotta is a novelist-as-cultural-anthropologist—Steinbeck without the Dust Bowl, Tom Wolfe without the rhetorical flourishes—and he looks at his fictional world with a dispassionate eye."—The Oregonian

"Darker and more ambitious than his previous four works of fiction . . . Little Children is a searing, compulsively readable look at how familial and marital discontent can metastasize into adultery and violence."—Newsday

"This wicked and hilarious novel provides a bitterly accurate portrait of contemporary family life."—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"[The author] manages to satirize and sympathize at the same time, redeeming all his characters by digging deep for their shared humanity."—The Seattle Times

"Perrotta's writing style isn't flashy. But his knack for capturing a variety of voices (from a four-year-old boy to an elderly woman) and the way he weaves in telling references to the minutiae of quotidian suburban existence (juice boxes and Blue's Clues, book clubs and cybersmut) make for characters who are idiosyncratic but familiar, difficult to condemn, difficult not to empathize with."—Boston Phoenix

"A masterpiece of a comic novel . . . What Perrotta has produced, in the end, is a new literary hybrid—a satire with heart."—Tacoma News-Tribune

"A story that is timeless and placeless yet rock-solid in its appeal . . . Perrotta has added another layer to what is becoming an impressive and durable body of work."—Boston Herald

"With this novel, Perrotta has entered the land of Updike and Cheever, the messy world of adults who cheat on spouses and fail their children, but unlike those excellent authors who staked out the territory, Perrotta's excursion does not leave an aftertaste of bitterness."—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"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

"Perrotta has to be considered one of our true genius satirists. Little Children is a great book. It's both an indictment of and an elegy to that off 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 and Shutter Island

"An accomplished comic novelist extends his range brilliantly. [This is] Perrotta's best."—Kirkus Reviews

"Perrotta moves away from his lighthearted, humorous tales of New Jersey (Joe College; Election) with his latest novel, a penetrating and absorbing portrait of three suburban couples and their failed marriages . . . Perrotta's poignant and unflinching prose skillfully evokes both sympathy for his characters and disdain for the convenience they have chosen. Highly recommended."—Library Journal

"The characters in this intelligent, absorbing tale of suburban angst are constrained and defined by their relationships to children . . . Perrotta views his characters with a funny, acute, and sympathetic eye, using the well-observed antics of preschoolers as a telling backdrop to their parents' botched transitions into adulthood. Once again, he proves himself an expert at exploring the roiling psychological depths beneath the placid surface of suburbia."—Publishers Weekly