TOM PERROTTA

'Tom Perrotta' (born August 13, 1961) is an American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels ''Election'' (1998) and ''Little Children'' (2004), both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Golden Globe-nominated films. Perrotta co-wrote the screenplay for the 2006 film version of ''Little Children'' with Todd Field, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Contents

Biography

Career

Bibliography

Novels

Short stories

Short story collections

References

External links

Biography

He was born 'Thomas R. Perrotta' in Garwood, New Jersey, the son of a postman and a secretary.Shanahan, Mark. "Adaptation: Tom Perrotta is growing accustomed to seeing his books on the big screen", ''The Boston Globe'', 2006-10-18. Retrieved on 2007-07-04. Perrotta grew up a voracious reader of authors such as O. Henry, J. R. R. Tolkien, and John Irving, and decided early in his life that he wanted to be a writer. He earned a B.A. in English from Yale University and then received an M.A. in English/Creative Writing from Syracuse University. While at Syracuse, Perrotta was a pupil of Tobias Wolff, whom he later praised for "comic writing and moral seriousness."Bancroft, Colette. "From page to screen", ''St. Petersburg Times'', 2007-01-14.
Perrota married the writer Mary Granfield in 1991.^[1] They live with their two children, Nina (b. 1994) and Luke (b. 1997), in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Career

While teaching Creative Writing at Yale and, later, Harvard University, Perrotta completed three novels that he had trouble getting published. One was ''Election'', the story of an intense high-school election inspired by the three-candidate 1992 United States presidential race, and another was ''Lucky Winners'', which remains unpublished as of 2007 and which Perrotta described in 2004 as "a pretty good novel about a family that falls apart after winning the lottery.""Meet the Writers: Tom Perrotta", Barnesandnoble.com, 2004. In 1994, Perrotta published his first book, a collection of short stories titled '' which ''The Washington Post'' called "more powerful than any other coming-of-age novel." It was followed by ''The Wishbones'', Perrotta's first novel, in 1997. The unpublished manuscript of ''Election'' was optioned as a screenplay in 1996 by director Alexander Payne, which then led to interest in publishing it as a book. It arrived in bookstores in March 1998, followed shortly by its film adaptation, which was released in April 1999 to critical acclaim. The film, which starred Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon, helped popularize Perrotta's writing.
Following ''Election'', Perrotta shifted his focus to an older—though just as troubled—cast of characters: first with 2000's ''Joe College'', a comic journey into the dark side of higher education, love, and food service; and then with 2004's ''Little Children'', which explored the psychological depths beneath the surface of suburbia. ''Little Children'' was featured on numerous "Best Books of 2004" lists—including those of ''The New York Times Book Review'', ''Newsweek'', National Public Radio, and ''People'' magazine—and garnered tremendous praise for Perrotta. ''The New York Times'' dubbed him "an American Chekhov whose characters even at their most ridiculous seem blessed and ennobled by a luminous human aura,"^[2] and ''People'' called him "the rare writer equally gifted at drawing people's emotional maps...and creating sidesplitting scenes."^[3] For his part, Perrotta describes himself as a writer in the "plain-language American tradition" of authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver.
In 2006, Perrotta sold New Line Cinema an original screenplay he co-wrote with ''Frasier'' producer Rob Greenberg. Titled ''Barry and Stan Gone Wild'', the screenplay is "a shameless comedy [about] a 40-something dermatologist who goes on spring break." Perrotta's latest novel, ''The Abstinence Teacher'', will be published on October 16, 2007. It is, according to the author, "all about sex education and the culture wars. It's close in spirit to ''Little Children'', I think." He is working on a film adaptation of the novel with ''Little Miss Sunshine'' directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.
In January 2007, Perrotta was on the guest faculty for the third annual Writers in Paradise conference at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. Perrotta was invited to teach at Eckerd College by Dennis Lehane; the two writers had previously taught together at Stonecoast Writers Conference in Maine.

Bibliography

Novels

★ ''The Wishbones'' (1997)

★ ''Election'' (1998)

★ ''Joe College'' (2000)

★ ''Little Children'' (2004)

★ ''The Abstinence Teacher'' (forthcoming, October 2007)

Short stories

★ "The Weiner Man" (1988)

★ "Wild Kingdom" (1988)

★ "Forgiveness" (1989-1994)

★ "The Smile on Happy Chang's Face" (2004)

★ "Kiddie Pool" (2006)

Short story collections

★ '' (1994)

References

1. "About Tom Perrotta", Official Web Site. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
2. Blythe, Will. "All the Children Are Above Average", ''The New York Times'', 2004-03-14. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
3. http://www.tomperrotta.net/content.php?page=election&n=2&f=2

External links

★ Official Web Site

★