Mrs. Fletcher

Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta (2017)

Tom Perrotta's brand new novel is about two characters: a 46-year-old woman and her son. Brendan is a total frat boy, heading off to college. He's not a terrible person, but he's a straight white dude who is completely oblivious to what it's like not be a straight white dude. He's sort of gross to women and doesn't understand that. He just sort of bumps around through his life, without focus or intention, other than having a good time and partying. Eve is sort of glad to have Brendan out of the house (who wouldn't be?) but also feels the empty space that has now opened up in her life. She makes some attempts at friendship, and starts taking a class called Gender and Society at the local community college. One night she gets an anonymous text from someone calling her a MILF, and she gets fixated on the concept and develops an obsession with a porn site called MILFateria.com.

I loved Eve. She ran a Senior Center and was a totally competent and confident professional, but in her personal life she floundered. She was divorced and her dating life is rather stagnant, though her newfound porn habit has made her rather more adventurous in real life. She begins doing lots of ethically-questionable things, and I really rather enjoyed her struggle to behave as a responsible adult and give in (sometimes) to her desires. I found her very genuine and relatable in many ways, and to be honest I feel a bit miffed that a male author created her.

Brendan is another thing altogether. He annoyed me so much, and I kept picturing Tom Perrotta chuckling about Brendan's stupidity as though he was once just like Brendan (though I suspect he wasn't ever like Brendan.) I feel like we were supposed to be annoyed with Brendan but also write him off as young and stupid in a harmless way, but I don't find him - or any guys like him - to be harmless, and couldn't be amused by him. He even once used my most-hated, most-invalidating, male-tone-deaf statement, which is: "Don't be like that." (Does anyone else hate that phrase as much as I do?) He was an interesting character in a way, and he got his comeuppance but didn't actually care because he is so stupid he doesn't know what a jerk he is. I wanted him to grow up more during the course of the novel and develop more self-awareness. Don't get me wrong though; I still liked reading the parts of the story that were narrated by Brendan.

So that's not a criticism of the book AT ALL. My only criticism relates to a transgender character, Eve's class instructor. Margo Fairchild referred to her early life a couple of times saying things like "when I was a guy" and referencing how she "used to be man," which is not how trans people generally think about themselves. I mean, in her mind she was always a woman, right? But trans people are all different just as cis people are all different and it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that someone might speak this way. Just...I find it hard to believe that a trans woman who teaches a college class about gender would speak this way.

Otherwise, I loved this book. Tom Perrotta has never disappointed me. His stories and his style of writing are always a pleasure and and I'm only sad that now I'll have to wait another few years for another book.

Nine Inches

Nine Inches by Tom Perrotta (2013)

Most of the stories in this collection are recognizable Perrotta, set as they are in schools and suburban neighborhoods, the star characters primarily parents, teachers, and teenagers. In "Backrub" an honor student, who was inexplicably turned down from every college he applied to, now delivers pizza and is being subjected to unwanted advances from a local cop. In "Grade My Teacher" a teacher confronts a student who wrote negative reviews of her online. A man sneaking into his neighbor's garage to use an air compressor on the sly finds more than he bargains for in "Kiddie Pool." A teenaged boy gets paid to take the SATs for other students in "The Test-Taker."

Unlike many short story collections it was easy to just move from one story to the next - maybe because they felt like they could have taken place in the same town to characters who all knew each other. Whatever the reason, instead of my usual habit of reading just one story at a time and then setting the book aside for a while, I plowed through the entire collection in less than a day.

In most collections there are a couple of stories that don't seem as good as the others, but each of the ten stories in Nine Inches deserved its place here and it would be tough to even pick favorites. Some of the stories were sad, filled with lost opportunities and missed connections, and in all of them I felt the same intimacy with the characters as usual in Perrotta's writing. As much as I don't like suburbia, I'm happy to dip into Tom Perrotta's version of it. I'm already looking forward to his next book.

The Wishbones

The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta (1997)

Tom Perrotta's first novel is about Dave Raymond, guitarist in a New Jersey wedding band. He's over 30 and still lives with his parents, and has been dating his girlfriend (who still lives with HER parents) on and off since high school. When Dave witnesses a member of another wedding band die, he's so upset he unthinkingly propose to Julie and now he's engaged, whether he likes it or not. (Mostly not.) Now that wedding plans are in full and enthusiastic swing, Dave meets a bridesmaid at a wedding and completely falls for her. He deals with it in the way you would expect from an immature, bumbling guy: not well at all.

I was partially sympathetic to Dave, but also wanted to slap him many times. He was a complete ass to those women. I don't feel like he had bad intentions though, I just think he was really stupid. Luckily, he was good-natured enough to make the book not only bearable, but a lot of fun. 

I really loved the whole idea of the wedding band, and the band members and other characters were all colorful and quirky. One member of the band found out at the beginning of the book that his wife was leaving him and he began totally falling apart. Another, single for so long his bandmates weren't even sure which gender he preferred, had spent years working on a musical about the JFK assassination. The third was a happily married father, but also an alcoholic. Minor characters, such as a racist and paranoid talk-show host who ironically calls himself Genial Jim, inject additional notes of hilarity throughout the novel. (I know he doesn't sound funny at all, but it was a funny scene. Trust me.)

Because this was Perrotta's first novel I wasn't expecting a whole lot, but I'm really impressed. I enjoyed The Wishbones as much as any of his other books. Maybe it doesn't delve as deeply into complex issues as Little Children or The Leftovers, but this light, funny novel was just as well-executed and pleasurable. 

The Leftovers

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta (2011)
 

 After millions of people around the world simultaneously disappear into thin air, the residents of the little town of Mapleton are shell-shocked but struggle to go on. Some are convinced that the Sudden Departure was the Rapture foretold in the Bible; others feel it was more random, based on the religions and perceived morality of those who are gone and those who are left behind. Some colorful cults have sprung up such as Guilty Remnants, the Barefoot People, and the Healing Huggers.

The novel focuses on one family in particular, which remained intact, but not untouched, by the event. Kevin, Laurie, Tom and Jill Garvey were all left behind, though they all know people who disappeared. Instead of learning on each other their family becomes fractured. Kevin appears unscathed and becomes the town's mayor. Laurie and Tom both end up leaving and joining cults, while Jill remains behind feeling alone and lost.

Most people are unable to connect with each other, and they can’t even really mourn for those who they’ve lost because they do not know where they are. Are they dead? Are they just somewhere else? What if they return just as suddenly? Up until the very end I found the characters’ motives unclear and their actions unpredictable. It is a town of people who have been stripped of eveything they believed and are trying to rebuild their lives and find some way to go on, stumbling, changing tactics, then heading off in another direction in search of some purpose, or at least relief.

Although the writing is relatively upbeat and not without moments of humor, at the end I was left feeling haunted and sad. The people in this town cannot reclaim what they lost, or even explain what happened- how can they go on without knowing if they will again suddenly be completely gobsmacked? Will life just go on, or is there a part two to this event as some of the cults insist? They cannot obtain closure.

I'm struck by how many reviews insist on referring the event as the Rapture, when even Perrotta describes it as a "Rapture-like event." Indeed, it is never explained in the book and there is a reason for that - the story is about how people behave and cope (or don't) after a major catastrophe they cannot explain. Well played, Tom Perrotta.