We've come a long way since Grace Metalious' Peyton Place (1956) and Tom T. Hall's "Harper Valley PTA" (1968), or have we? Has the writing/arts world made any strides in exposing the seedy underbelly of white American suburbia since John Updike's Rabbit, Run (1960)?
Maybe not, but there's still great entertainment value in novels like A.M. Homes' Music for Torching (1999) and Tom Perrotta's Little Children (2004). Homes' version is so amped up and over-the-top that we may not see a movie version, although such a thing would probably feel more coherent than the film adaptation (2001) of her 1990 short story collection The Safety of Objects.
Given the post-9/11/2001 milieu, we may be in greater need of modernized equivalents to Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (1955) and Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961), tales set within a global context, tales with a stronger sense of urgency.
Luckily, there's room for everything, and some things call for repeated satirization with each new generation. Music for Torching is darkly hilarious, and Little Children questions social attitudes and judgments.
Perhaps new novels and story collections are in the works that take Wilson and Heller in stride, adding Don DeLillo's White Noise (1985) and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club (1996) as newer signposts for a post-post-modern world.
Photo of A. M. (Amy Michael) Homes.Today's Rune: Journey.
Bon Voyage!
4 comments:
Hey, I love Harper Valley PTA. I always sing that song when I do Kareoke.
Definitely, a thought-provoking post, Erik. Pleasantville and the remake of The Stepford Wives were funny, and American Psycho, as social satire, was great. I loved how he had a corporate job but never did any work and the meetings were spent arguing over who had the best business card...too funny. How much really gets accomplished in all these "meetings" anyway?
Speaking of Perrotta, I emailed him after you told me that he and I shared a birthday. He immediately emailed me back!
I remember my mom always singing Harper Valley PTA when I was little on her Kareoke machine. Great memories!
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