Adaptation
Tom Perrotta is growing accustomed to seeing his books on the big screen
Tom Perrotta knew better than anyone in the theater what was about to happen. After all, he'd written this scene in his novel ``Little Children " and again in the screenplay for director Todd Field 's new movie based on the book.
But sitting in the dark at the film's recent New York premiere, Perrotta was nonetheless alarmed when the character of Ronnie, a paroled child molester, dons a mask and flippers and begins swimming with a crowd of kids at a public pool.
``That's a moment straight from the book," Perrotta says, ``and yet it startled even me."
The sensory experience of seeing his words on the wide screen is a pleasure Perrotta is getting used to. One of his earlier books, ``Election ," was turned into a critically acclaimed movie by director Alexander Payne , and his latest novel, ``The Abstinence Teacher ," has been optioned even though it won't be published for several months.
``I can't really explain it," Perrotta says over a beer at a Cambridge bar. ``Obviously, the material has to appeal to people, so I give myself that much credit."
In truth, Perrotta, who's 45 and lives in Belmont, has quietly established himself as a major American writer, an original voice whose satirical take on suburban life, politics, and pop culture appeals not only to readers but also to movie producers looking for smart material.
``He is obviously attracting the attention of some very good directors," says writer Tobias Wolff , a friend and former teacher of Perrotta's. ``What are they seeing? A very talented guy."
Talented? Yes. Flamboyant? No. The success of his books and the big-screen adaptation s notwithstanding, Perrotta is soft-spoken to the extreme. The son of a postman and a secretary, he's not prone to hard partying or self-promotion, preferring instead to write, read, and raise two children with his wife, writer Mary Granfield. Joe Eszterhas he isn't.
``I think this whole runaround with `Little Children' has been kind of an eye- opener for Tom," says his brother, Joe, an attorney in Atlanta. ``At the Q & A after the premiere, the director and Kate Winslet were there, but the first question out of the box was for Tom."
Perrotta grew up in Garwood , N.J., a nondescript New York City suburb that he says is ``somewhere between the Walt Whitman Rest Area and `The Sopranos.' " Neither of his parents went to college, but books -- everything from O. Henry to Tolkien to John Irving -- were an essential part of his childhood. Energized by what he read, Perrotta resolved early on to become a writer.
``No one said I couldn't," he says.
Perrotta went to Yale, where he majored in English, and then to the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University. He hoped to study there with Raymond Carver, but Carver became quite ill. Fortunately, Wolff, whose memoir, ``This Boy's Life ," is among Perrotta's favorite books, was also on the Syracuse staff.
``I saw [Wolff] as such a great example of a writer and a teacher and a father," Perrotta says. ``Sometimes you meet your heroes and you're disappointed. I was not disappointed."
Much of what Perrotta wrote at Syracuse showed up in his first book, ``Bad Haircut ," a collection of understated, yet affecting stories about a boy growing up in small-town New Jersey. It was warmly reviewed, but Perrotta wisely kept his day job, which included teaching positions at Yale and, later, Harvard.
Asked to describe his writing, Perrotta says he works in the ``plain-language American tradition," a style exemplified by the likes of Hemingway and Carver. But he's much funnier. Each of his four novels, ``The Wishbones ," ``Election," ``Joe College," and even the adult-themed ``Little Children," has enough adolescent humor to appeal to the biggest Will Ferrell fan.
``Tom's got a human touch," says Wolff, who teaches at Stanford now. ``He's got a sense of humor that isn't trivial and a sense of the absurd that isn't expressed in an easy cynicism."
It's a style that has attracted many admirers in Hollywood. ``Bad Haircut" was turned into a TV pilot for WB, and ``The Wishbones," about a guitarist in a going-nowhere wedding band, was optioned soon after its release in 1997. (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon took a crack at a screenplay, as did Noah Baumbach , but a movie of ``The Wishbones" hasn't yet been made.)
Perhaps Perrotta's biggest break came when he got a phone call from Albert Berger , the producer along with his partner Ron Yerxa of such movies as ``King of the Hill ," ``Crumb ," and ``Little Miss Sunshine ." A friend of Berger's had heard Perrotta read at a writers conference and thought his work might make for a decent movie.
``Tom told me he had an unpublished novel sitting in his drawer, and he asked if I would be interested in seeing it," Berger recalls.
The book was ``Election," and Berger was very interested. In 1999 he produced the movie, which earned Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor an Oscar nomination for best screenplay. Starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon , the dark comedy about a contentious campaign for class president did modestly at the box office, but critics loved it. Writing recently in Vogue, John Powers praised ``Election" as ``one of the great American screen comedies."
If not quite a player in LA, Perrotta was at least in demand after ``Election." Still, as he sat down to write ``Little Children" -- a process that took about a year and a half -- he did so without any expectation that it would become a movie.
``I wrote this book absolutely, uncompromisingly as a novel , and I didn't care if it got optioned," Perrotta says. ``Given the subject matter and the scope, I just wasn't sure if anyone would see a movie in it, and I didn't mind that."
Despite the title, ``Little Children" is actually Perrotta's first book about adults -- albeit dysfunctional ones -- who deal in illicit and sometimes peculiar ways with the monotony of their joyless, suburban lives. In creating the playground and pool where the unhappy couples congregate, the author drew hea v ily upon his own experience as a stay-at-home dad in Belmont. ``Perrotta is, indeed, all grown up now," Chris Lehmann of The
Berger promptly put the book in the hands of Field, whose previous film, ``In the Bedroom ," had received an Oscar nomination for best picture. Unfamiliar with Perrotta's earlier work, Field says he was immediately struck by the author's ``intimate observational prose."
``There are these ` Tristram Shandy '-like character digressions and back stories," Field says. ``Tom's voice was like discovering another country. I'm always reading, and very rarely do I come across an author whose work I can't stop thinking about like Tom's."
Initially, Field envisioned an eight-hour miniseries, but when HBO wasn't interested, he took up residence at the Eliot Hotel and, with Perrotta sitting alongside, began crafting a screenplay for a feature-length film.
``So many authors would resist the impulse to change their material, but the excitement for Tom is working with people who are staking out their own terrain the way he is," Berger says. ``He has very little ego."
The movie, which opens here Friday, is darker than the book and ends more dramatically, but Perrotta doesn't mind. In fact, he likes the movie very much.
``It's better to have a talented person do their version of your novel than someone not so talented do a totally faithful version," he says. ``If you want the Tom Perrotta version of `Little Children,' it's really easy to find."
Comparing the book and the movie doesn't interest Field, either.
``It's bound to happen in any marriage," he says. ``Two people get married , and they have a child, and that child is a third, totally separate entity."
Even if ``Little Children" is an enormous box-office success, which isn't likely despite the superb reviews, Perrotta says he'll remain a novelist. He enjoys screenwriting -- he and a friend just sold a shameless comedy to New Line called ``Barry and Stan Gone Wild," about a 40-something dermatologist who goes on spring break -- but it's just a hobby.
``A lot of fiction writers brush up against Hollywood, and for whatever reason they come a way feeling frustrated or disillusioned," Perrotta says. ``For me it opened a window and gave me another way to be a writer."
