Tom Perrotta: His Novel Take on Suburban Life

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Hollywood is not known as a place that is kind to writers. But from what I understand, your experience has been pretty good?
TOM PERROTTA: I've managed to land very squarely in this indie corner of things. If you're talking about studios and putting up a hundred million dollars for a big franchise project, writers are pretty dispensable. But if you're talking about people who are willing to make a movie with directors like Alexander Payne [who helmed Election] or Todd Field, it's all about the writing.

Between novels and scripts, which type of writing do you prefer?
I have found the back-and-forth a great thing. Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control. But novel writing is a lonely job. When I was offered this chance to do more collaborative stuff, it really appealed to me. I constantly aggrandize my life by pretending I'm a musician, cause that's really what I wanted to do. Making movies is sort of a band experience: You're getting to work with other people and if they're good they make you better.

You co-wrote the Little Children script with Todd Field. Now, with The Abstinence Teacher, you're going it alone?
Yes, but working very closely with Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. To me, film is a collaborative medium. I like that. For instance, two weeks ago, I was out in L.A. and I spent every day with Jonathan and Valerie, going through it scene by scene. They were very much working on a writerly level with me.

I read on your website that in 1993 you ghostwrote a teen horror novel for a best-selling series?
I took an oath of non-disclosure — that's what we called it. It was a very prominent [series]. I would get up in the morning and I wrote some part of Election, then I'd have lunch, and then I'd write my teen horror novel. Now when I think about it, that's when I became a writer. It's good to take the romance out of writing. And that certainly did it for me! [Laughs] Money was a real issue at that point in my life and it was very comforting to think, if nothing else, all these years I've spent trying to be a writer have given me a skill that I can make money with. The fact was, I got $5,000 for writing that teen horror novel. When my first book got published, I got zero.

Five grand — and your name's not even on it.
No. And thank god! It's the stupidest book. The series is no longer in existence. It was before Harry Potter and it was basically an attempt to feed the same audience. Kids like to be scared. So it's like Stephen King with training wheels.

Was it R.L. Stine?
Yeah. Not Goosebumps, but Fear Street, which was the bigger one. [The publisher would send me] these packages that gave a plot breakdown, chapter by chapter. It would make no sense, but your job would be to make sense. In this case, it was the story of some girl who kept blacking out and waking up with a murder victim at her feet. Somebody had been choked and she had, like, a wire in her hand. [Laughs]

It's like a teen version of The Morning After, where Jane Fonda plays a drunk who wakes up with a corpse in her bed.
Well, that's probably [where the idea came from]. The story I had to write was: The girl's boyfriend's father was an anthropologist. He'd gone to New Guinea and he taped this native chant which allowed you to control somebody else's mind. So the guy would play this New Guinean mind-control chant and get his girlfriend to commit a murder, under the theory that he knew she was going to break up with him, but if she needed him for support during her murder trial, she wouldn't break up with him! [Laughs heartily]

Wow, high concept.
High concept, right? It's called The Thrill Club. [He pauses and smiles] This is my oath of non-disclosure goin' up in smoke. If you see me hauled into court like JT Leroy, you'll know why! [Laughs]