Thursday, February 08, 2007

Interview with Tom Perrotta

Tom Perrotta, author of the excellent Little Children and other books, sat for a short interview with Alyson Rudd for the London Times.

Part of their exchange:
Were you trying to write a modern version of Madame Bovary?

I was as much interested in the differences between Sarah and Emma Bovary as I was in the similarities. On rereading Flaubert I was startled by how little time Madame Bovary spent interacting with her child. For most of the book the child is off with a wet nurse and doesn’t really interfere with her mother’s eventful love life. Sarah’s not the greatest mother in the world, but her child is the centre of her world. I found it especially amusing that she was stuck with her child on the night she was planning to run off with her lover.

Read the interview.

--Marshal Zeringue