This article first appeared in Entertainment Weekly.
Get your mind out of the gutter. This isn’t about porn. Nine inches refers to the space that must separate junior high schoolers at a dance. In his first short-story collection in 19 years, Perrotta (Little Children) mines his familiar but fascinating territory — the intersection of class, envy, and boredom in suburbia. The standouts: ”The Smile on Happy Chang’s Face,” about a Little League game that turns into Armageddon, and ”Backrub,” about a teenager rejected from every college he applied to who turns to running pizza and drugs. B+