Outside Providence is an English language novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by writer, producer, and director Peter Farrelly

Peter Farrelly

Peter John Farrelly is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and novelist. The Farrelly Brothers are mostly famous for directing and producing gross-out humor romantic comedy films such as, Dumb and Dumber, Me, Myself and Irene, There's Something About Mary and The Heartbreak...

, published in 1988.

Plot summary

Largely an autobiographical tale, the novel revolves around Timothy "Dildo

Dildo

A dildo is a sex toy, often explicitly phallic in appearance, intended for bodily penetration during masturbation or sex with partners.- Description and uses :...

" Dunphy, a ne'er-do-well from the city of Pawtucket

Pawtucket, Rhode Island

Pawtucket is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 71,148 at the 2010 census. It is the fourth largest city in the state.-History:...

, Rhode Island

Rhode Island

The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

, which borders Providence

Providence, Rhode Island

Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...

. After Dunphy falls in with a bad element at home, his father, a widower, exiles him to the fictional Cornwall Academy (a thin guise for Kent School

Kent School

Kent School is a private, co-educational college preparatory school in Kent, Connecticut, USA. The Reverend Frederick Herbert Sill, Order of the Holy Cross, established the school in 1906 and it retains its affiliation with the Episcopal Church of the United States.Students at Kent come from more...

 located near Kent, Connecticut).

Over time, Dunphy struggles with issues including class structure, loyalty, first love, and his ongoing issues with his father. Ironically, Dunphy finds that his fellow prep-school students merely represent a wealthier, more polished class of delinquent than the friends he has left at home.

The novel was Farrelly's fledgling effort, and served as his thesis when he graduated from the creative writing program at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

.

Film adaptation

Farrelly turned his novel into a screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 and a film adaptation

Film adaptation

Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...

of the book was released in 1999.