Outside Providence (1988) by Peter Farrelly

 1001 Novels: A Library of America

Outside Providence (1988)

by Peter Farrelly

Providence, Rhode Island

Rhode Island: 5/9

     Fiction about Americans is almost entirely about three different groups:  city people, town people and rural people.  Part of understanding American Literature is understanding the demographic changes where Americans have increasingly become concentrated in urban areas while at the same time resisting identifying themselves as embracing big city/cosmopolitan virtues.  This shift happened in the 20th century. At the beginning of the century the concentration of people in towns and cities was under 30 percent of the total population.  Today it's something like 90 percent of the total population in the United States. 

   Those places that are NOT located in cities, towns and built up areas are increasingly defined by their proximity to those places and intrusions from those places.  In the states of New England, you can see that clearly in the fiction of Maine and Vermont which fairly crackles with the tension between locals and those from away.   I mention this because Rhode Island is the first truly urban setting encountered in the 1001 Novels sequence.  Obviously, Boston is THE city for New England, but Providence Rhode Island would be the second place finisher.  Thus, it's not surprising to read a book by Hollywood filmmaker Peter Farrelly- presumably a fictionalized version of his own upbringing Outside Providence, coming out of Rhode Island.

    This book basically seemed like a regional variation on The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll, which was about growing up in New York City between 1963 and 1966.   Outside Providence is set in a different state and decade, but there is no mistaking the "city kid" coming of age motif that has been current since The Catcher in the Rye was published in the New Yorker.  As far as I can tell, Outside Providence was a flop when it came out, then got made into a movie after the Farrelly Brothers broke out in Hollywood.  To Farrelly's credit, Outside Providence does feel like a book set in a specific place- plenty of scenery described and outdoor escapades.