Little Children by Tom Perrota

Little Children

I started reading Little Children the other day and I was thinking to myself, "Why the heck am I reading this?"
I remembered buying it on purpose. But what purpose?
Had Amazon let me down? "Your Recommendations" throw me a curve ball? No way. Amazon is always dead on balls accurate.
I just couldn't remember why I had bought and was now reading this sing song romance fiction. Straight story telling. And all made up. Finally when Sarah reads Madame Bovary in the book something jump started my memory.
I heard Tom Perrota on Fresh Air talking about how his character rereads Madame Bovary after her life detours from grad school feminist to motherhood and adultery. This sounded great on the air and it cuts both ways in the book just as you'd expected.
A few things about my high school reading of Madame Bovary:

1. I read it while my parents were reconciling after about a year of separation. I had it in my head that marriage just didn't work anymore. So the book confused me. Made me wonder if marriage had ever worked.


2. It was an early glimpse for me of the notion of feminism.


3. I remember learning the word apoplectic from reading it.

I think it would be fair to call Little Children a realist's romance novel. There's plenty of hidden love and lust, taboo perversion, and righteous anger. Elicit assignations and frank adultery. This story is about a few people living unhappy lives a couple of which cheat on their spouses to escape for a summer. We don't have to read fiction to know that marriages fall apart for bad reasons, or to feel jealous of young lovers. This summer you could read this story or spend it gossiping about your neighbor. Better yet, fall in love again (with your spouce if you're married) and tell us the story.