After the publication of Election in 1998, Tom Perrotta proved he knows exactly how to strip characters down to their core. Growing up in Garwood, New Jersey – something that would inspire his novels – and being a student of Tobias Wolff has given him the tools he has to be the seemingly dark and yet comic writer. Perrotta’s Little Children does just this – offering us an insight into a group of people trapped in their own boredom where we are given the permission to dislike them.

Set in the Boston suburbs Little Children looks at the affair between an unhappy housewife, Sarah, and an even unhappier househusband Todd. Among all of this is the reaction of the townsfolk of a paedophile named Ronnie who has been released after exposing himself to children. The paedophile storyline lurks throughout the entire book, allowing the characters to ignore their own problems and focus on something else.

From Yates to Cheever the suburbs has always been something of interest both to readers and writers. What lurks beyond the perfectly manicured gardens or the ornate houses? What are the smiling housewives truly thinking or the husbands driving off to work? The realisation that most people living in such beauty are unhappy is a common theme running through most suburban literature and yet Perrota gives us a fresh, almost breath-taking, novel.  The honesty held in his writing – looking at the annoyance Sarah’s young daughter gives her and the entrapment of Todd in his day-to-day life – is what sets him apart from most writers today. His ability to take such a basic plot and thrust it into a dark story makes it the almost perfect book. Sarah and Todd are not people you will like – not just adulterers but also conflicted with their own emotions and barriers.

With a reflection on Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Perrotta has given us a love affair that will anger some and drain sympathy from others. It appears to be his intention – just like Flaubert’s – to not allow the readers to completely understand the character’s motives. Perrotta never builds walls with his characters, allowing his readers to delve inside but what he does perfectly is show that the reader’s own confusion comes from the character’s themselves.

Little Children is a new look at suburbia, giving us ordinary, realistic characters that allows readers to indulge in, as well as judge and dislike. The book itself allows us to point out the stupidity of the people we are reading about but also makes us reflect on our choices, whether we would do the exact same things.

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