My local book group, the one that tends to be more lightweight, read Tom Perrota's Little Children for today's meeting. I was kind of looking forward to it. I glanced through it when it showed up in the house. I'm not sure whether Mr. Spy purchased it or whether it arrived as from one of the free books lists we seem to be on, thanks to Mr. Spy's occasional book review work and his friends in publishing. I had heard good things about the book as a biting satire of suburbia. And as a woman who spent a substantial chunk of her childhood in a suburb that has been rumored to the model of Peyton Place and where two different versions of The Stepford Wives were filmed, I am well acquainted with the terrain. Although I've spent a substantial chunk of my life in cities and my own current presence in suburbia feels like an anomaly, I am firmly an insider of this particular genre.

I've been a fan of satirical writing about suburbia for a long time, particularly the short stories of John Cheever, whom I've written about on assorted occasions, giving me the self-appointed title of Parablendeum Expert. And I enjoyed Perrota's Election, both in book and film forms. But I have to say that this one didn't do it for me. The whole time I was reading the book I kept thinking, "this is a total waste of my time." And then I went back and reread assorted prominent reviews for the book and wondered what I'm missing. And I still can't decide: Is the book overrated? Or am I too close to the subject?

The principal character, after all, sounds more than a little familiar, especially at the beginning of the book. She's a doctoral student who hasn't written her thesis. She feels simultaneously intellectually superior and also inadequate in the company of other mothers. Been there. Done that. Moreover, these sentiments were totally reinforced as I got myself ready to go to my book group meeting. I mean, what do I wear?

The meeting was funny, as it quickly became apparent how self-reflexive any attempt of a group of stay-at-home suburban mothers to discuss this book is destined to be. My favorite scene in the book was, in fact, a book group meeting. As the group debated the realism and the relativism of the story, the discussion quickly spun, as book group conversations tend to do, into friendly neighborhood gossip.

The bottom line, though, is that although many reviewers talked about Perrota's lack of ego, his honesty and failure to show off, I thought it read like a book that wanted to be a movie, like the author had the movie rights in mind when he wrote it. This made me feel like I'd been sold a bill of goods. And I didn't think most of it felt like much of a satire. I didn't think the author had enough ironic distance from his subject, so that while he was trying to criticize it in a humorous way, he was falling into it at the same time. While some reviewers praised this technique as something that gave his characters humanity, I think it turned what could have been a clever commentary into a dull soap opera of a novel.

Still, he's spot on in some of his characterizations. We all found things that were uncomfortably familiar. Although, as one of the book group members mentioned, there are no stay-at-home dads in our circle. "I mean, come on, where's our Prom King?"

Next month we're reading Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette. I hope we can avoid falling into that book. I'd like to avoid the guillotine.

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