Tom Perrotta

Slate has an essay by Election and Little Children author Tom Perrotta on the Republican vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, in which he writes, "Caribou hunting aside, Sarah Palin represents the state-of-the-art version of a particular type of woman—let's call her the Sexy Puritan—that's become a familiar and potent figure in the culture war in recent years."

Mr. Perrotta continues:

Sexy Puritans engage in the culture war on two levels—not simply by advocating conservative positions on hot-button social issues but by embodying nonthreatening mainstream standards of female beauty and behavior at the same time. The net result is a paradox, a bit of cognitive dissonance very useful to the cultural right: You get a little thrill along with your traditional values, a wink along with the wagging finger.  read more »

It’s a classic tale: the going-nowhere 30-something who lives in his parents’ basement in New Jersey. The bohemian Manhattan chick who makes him realize there’s more to life than playing in a wedding band in the suburbs. A bridge-and-tunnel romance that shatters the engagement with his long-time girlfriend! Actually, it sounds more like the plot of an indie film, and that it soon will be, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which brings us news that Warner Independent Pictures is readying a movie based on Tom Perrotta’s “offbeat romantic comedy novel,” The Wishbones, with Little Miss Sunshine producers Albert Berga and Ron Yerxa. The duo was at a reading Mr. Perrotta did for The Wishbones, his first novel, back when it came out in 1997. Mr. Perrotta had originally adapted the book for New Line in 2000, and now Mr. Berga and Mr. Yerxa are looking for a director to work with him on updating the script for Warner. Of course the real question is, Who will be on the soundtrack?

While John Grisham's Playing for Pizza and Alice Sebold's The Almost Moon top the New York Times' best sellers list, we're poking our heads into BookCourt in Cobble Hill to see what Brooklynites are tucking into their totes.

Out in the Manhattan suburb (sorry, it's true!), where baby strollers, daddy-actor types and yoga-obsessed writers run rampant, it's not surprising that Tom Perrotta's new book The Abstinence Teacher tops the hardcover fiction list. After all, the guy wrote Little Children, the most angsty-cool anti-parenting guide ever written. In his new book, Mr. Perrotta abandons the kiddie playground for school to examine how a single sex education teacher will battle a herd of evangelical Christians trying to get her to ditch the old banana/condom demo and take on an abstinence curriculum. In The Abstinence Teacher, Mr. Perrotta continues "writing books for people who don't much like books—satires for nice people, fuck books for prudes," according to Benjamin Alsup at Esquire. Fun! But you could also follow Mr. Alsup's advice and just wait for the movie.  read more »