Fear and loathing in suburbia
I was bowled over when I recently heard that a women's book club from one of the "w" suburbs (wealthy . . . western . . . Wellesley . . . Weston; you get the picture) had vetted Tom Perrotta's dark tale of the suburbs, "Little Children," and deemed it inappropriate for discussion. What an accolade! I guess this means we won't see Perrotta "sharing" his feelings with Oprah and her literary sob sister ilk.
What is so . . . transgressive about "Little Children" that the Anita Shreve/Alice Sebold/Carol Shields readers can't handle? For one thing, it's a straight-up story of adulterous longings among purportedly loving couples, always a skittish subject in bedroom communities. Perrotta deftly toe-touches other latent suburban anxieties, for instance the call-the-cops vigilantism that lurks beneath suburbanites' championing of property, sorry, "family" values.
Furthermore, Perrotta isn't gentle in his portrayal of the young mothers who while away their days on the playgrounds of exurbia, all the while plotting how best to prepare their charges for the Ivy League interview circuit. He serves up a barbed portrait of a book group (!) in one of Boston's genteel suburbs hacking its way through "Madame Bovary." When an older member of the group suggests that Ms. Bovary might be "reclaiming her sexuality," one of Perrotta's young mothers responds: "Reclaiming her sexuality? Isn't that a nice way of saying she's a slut?"
Perrotta's most delightful transgression is his unsentimental treatment of what passes for the third rail of suburban reality -- the sanctity of child rearing. Yes, of course, one witnesses some unforgettable moments during the first three or four years of a child's life. Yet for the most part escorting babies and toddlers on the long journey from the crib to the kindergarten door is dirty, exhausting, soul-depleting work. Why do you think we have women do it?
There is nothing very redemptive about Perrotta's little children -- yes, I know the title is a clever play on words -- and kudos to him for writing about the world as he found it, not as he might have wished it to be. And for writing the best final sentence of any novel I have read in memory. It's quite rare that any writer these days has the faintest idea how to end a book.
I can't write about Perrotta's nominal comedy -- strictly speaking, it is a tragedy -- without mentioning my friend Sabin Willett's excellent suburban comedy of bad manners, "Present Value." "Value" didn't fully find its audience, which is another way of saying that it wasn't reviewed in The New York Times, but a favorable review elsewhere prompted me to pick it up.
(You might assume that I would read a book by a friend, but it is dangerous to assume. I prefer not to read friends' books, because they are so often disappointing. Curiously, my friends say the same thing about mine. . . .)
The protagonists of "Value" are both corporate lawyers, which guarantees a concentration of evil that Perrotta's grad-school dropouts, documentary filmmakers, and nebulous marketing consultants can't match. Willett's sendups of private schools and child psychology are merciless. There are scenes in the courtroom that are as good as anything Tom Wolfe wrote in "The Bonfire of the Vanities." Willett, who lives in Sherborn, has a day job as a bankruptcy lawyer in downtown Boston. He knows whereof he writes.
"Little Children" -- A minus. "Present Value" -- B plus. Perfect for book groups in the city or suburb of your choosing.
Free plug
Speaking of local fellows who can turn a phrase, alt-country singer/composer Steve Mardon and his band the Egregious Typos will be kicking off a series of early evening live music gigs at the Plough & Stars in Cambridge on May 7. I've listened to all the cuts on his CD "Critic's Darling," and there are moments when I hear the wit and the twang of the younger John Prine.
You can listen to the title song, and several others, for free at stevemardon.com. I hope you appreciate the play on the words "greatest hits" as much as I did.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com. 
