St. Martin's Press, August 2011
Tom Perrotta's new novel The Leftovers explores a startling question: What if millions of us disappeared in a split second? One moment, we're there jogging on a treadmill at the gym. The next, we're gone. And our families and friends are left behind to sift through the aftermath of our mass exodus. In The Leftovers, the residents of Mapleton are living through such a time, and Perrotta captures their story with a great deal of humor and wit.
Tom Perrotta has been dubbed "the Steinbeck of Suburbia," and his fans will find that The Leftovers returns to familiar terrain. Mapleton is an orderly and affluent American suburb, reminiscent of the suburban playgrounds, parks, and soccer fields of his other novels, including Little Children, Joe College, and The Abstinence Teacher. The people who live in these neighborhoods have fine-tuned bodies and model homes, but those in Mapleton can't deny that something has gone terribly wrong.
The problem is that they don't know exactly what happened. October 14th, The Sudden Departure, happened so fast that people's heads are still spinning. No one can explain why millions of people were plucked from the Earth - or why millions of others were left behind. The event seems to have been Rapture-like, but random. Christians, Buddhists, good people, and bad disappeared. And just as many of them remained.
Tom Perrotta's new novel The Leftovers explores a startling question: What if millions of us disappeared in a split second? One moment, we're there jogging on a treadmill at the gym. The next, we're gone. And our families and friends are left behind to sift through the aftermath of our mass exodus. In The Leftovers, the residents of Mapleton are living through such a time, and Perrotta captures their story with a great deal of humor and wit.
Tom Perrotta has been dubbed "the Steinbeck of Suburbia," and his fans will find that The Leftovers returns to familiar terrain. Mapleton is an orderly and affluent American suburb, reminiscent of the suburban playgrounds, parks, and soccer fields of his other novels, including Little Children, Joe College, and The Abstinence Teacher. The people who live in these neighborhoods have fine-tuned bodies and model homes, but those in Mapleton can't deny that something has gone terribly wrong.
The problem is that they don't know exactly what happened. October 14th, The Sudden Departure, happened so fast that people's heads are still spinning. No one can explain why millions of people were plucked from the Earth - or why millions of others were left behind. The event seems to have been Rapture-like, but random. Christians, Buddhists, good people, and bad disappeared. And just as many of them remained.
The Mapleton leftovers are realistic people - teenagers, parents, young adults - who bring to life this book's puzzling premise. The Leftovers explores how this community copes with such a devastating event through the prism of a single family, the Garvey's, who all survive The Sudden Departure despite the mysterious disappearance of their neighbors and friends. But they're marred by it and struggling to find a way through. Kevin Garvey turns to optimism; his wife and son leave him to join cults, and his teenage daughter flip-flops through phases of grief and rebellion.
The narrator of The Leftovers acts as a guide to this strange new world three years removed from The Sudden Departure. It's a time in Mapleton when widowers are beginning to date again, and children are adjusting to newly defined family structures. The guiding voice is chatty and omniscient, one that can tell us both that Kevin Garvey starts to feel a "highly ironic stirring in his groin" when he sees his estranged wife and that Mapleton has resorted to "manic socializing" as a means of combatting grief: "impromptu block parties that lasted for entire weekends, potluck dinners that stretched into sleepovers, quick hellos that turned into marathon gabfests."
The narrator of The Leftovers acts as a guide to this strange new world three years removed from The Sudden Departure. It's a time in Mapleton when widowers are beginning to date again, and children are adjusting to newly defined family structures. The guiding voice is chatty and omniscient, one that can tell us both that Kevin Garvey starts to feel a "highly ironic stirring in his groin" when he sees his estranged wife and that Mapleton has resorted to "manic socializing" as a means of combatting grief: "impromptu block parties that lasted for entire weekends, potluck dinners that stretched into sleepovers, quick hellos that turned into marathon gabfests."
With a subject matter that could quickly become cliché, Perrotta manages to create surprise at every turn. He writes relationship drama well, and he offers wonderful insight into the nuts and bolts of his characters' minds - however quirky they may be. Nora, for instance, deals with the loss of her husband and two kids by watching episodes of SpongeBob and journaling about the memories they produce. The practice becomes "vaguely religious," and gives "focus and structure to her life."
The Leftovers also contains an element of suspense that's threaded throughout the story. The unknowns surrounding The Sudden Departure create intrigue, and a series of unexplained murders in Mapleton ratchets up the tension while adding a mysterious twist to the plot. These elements of suspense and mystery will keep readers interested in the book from beginning to end, but Perrotta perhaps leaves too much undone. Those who keep reading in hopes of an explanation for The Sudden Departure will remain waiting for answers that never come.
Perrotta leaves his readers in a fog about what happened to the Mapletonites who disappeared on October 14 and about what will happen to survivors in the future. But by creating such a cloud of unknowing, he perhaps puts his readers in a place where they can experience this novel life along with the leftovers, "as if the whole world had paused to take a deep breath and steel itself for whatever was going to happen next."
The Leftovers also contains an element of suspense that's threaded throughout the story. The unknowns surrounding The Sudden Departure create intrigue, and a series of unexplained murders in Mapleton ratchets up the tension while adding a mysterious twist to the plot. These elements of suspense and mystery will keep readers interested in the book from beginning to end, but Perrotta perhaps leaves too much undone. Those who keep reading in hopes of an explanation for The Sudden Departure will remain waiting for answers that never come.
Perrotta leaves his readers in a fog about what happened to the Mapletonites who disappeared on October 14 and about what will happen to survivors in the future. But by creating such a cloud of unknowing, he perhaps puts his readers in a place where they can experience this novel life along with the leftovers, "as if the whole world had paused to take a deep breath and steel itself for whatever was going to happen next."
Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.
