Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrottais an American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Electionand Little Children, both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-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. He is also known for his novel The Leftovers, which has been adapted into a TV series on HBO...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth13 August 1961
CountryUnited States of America
I think I'm fascinated by the power of religion in our culture. Like a lot of secular, liberal people, I ignored it for a long time. Lately, of course, just from a political perspective, it's impossible to ignore.
I was writing very early, like I was involved in our high school literary magazine, which was called 'Pariah.' The football team was the Bears, and the literary magazine was 'Pariah.' It was great. It was definitely a real sub-culture. But I wrote stories for them.
My novels are certainly more exciting than my own life.
It just so happened that for most of my life I've lived in the suburbs.
I find that even small changes sometimes jog you out of a mental rut.
As for writing about temptation, there's no drama without temptation, and no novel without drama.
I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters, seeing the world through their eyes.
I have actual dreams of Bruce Springsteen calling me up on stage to wear a bandanna and play rhythm guitar next to Little Steven.
I really wanted to be a musician, but it turned out I had no sense of time.
I was a garbage man in New Jersey in summers during college at Yale. Everybody else got to go to Switzerland and I got to go to the dump.
I was also known as Frodo because I was an early adopter of 'The Lord of the Rings.
I write about kids growing up, I write a lot about schools and parents, and all of my experiences with those things have been suburban experiences.
I've been a little bit obsessed with religion, without being a religious person, for about a decade.
The few times I've tried to write original screenplays, it's a difficult process because I just don't feel like I know the characters the way I know them after the year or two it takes to write a novel.