The Leftovers: A Novel - Softcover

Perrotta, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312363559 ISBN 13: 9780312363550

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2012

Synopsis

A New York Times Notable Book for 2011
A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book for 2011
The New York Times bestseller now in paperback―A thought-provoking engrossing novel about love, connection, and loss from the author of The Abstinence Teacher and Little Children

What if your life was upended in an instant? What if your spouse or your child disappeared right in front of your eyes? Was it the Rapture or something even more difficult to explain? How would you rebuild your life in the wake of such a devastating event? These are the questions confronting the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, a formerly comfortable suburban community that lost over a hundred people in the Sudden Departure. Kevin Garvey, the new mayor, wants to move forward, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized neighbors, even as his own family disintegrates. His wife, Laurie, has left him to enlist in the Guilty Remnant, a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence but haunt the town's streets as "living reminders" of God's judgment. His son, Tom, is gone, too, dropping out of college to follow a crooked "prophet" who calls himself Holy Wayne. Only his teenaged daughter, Jill, remains, and she's definitely not the sweet "A" student she used to be.

Through the prism of a single family, Perrotta illuminates a familiar America made strange by grief and apocalyptic anxiety. Tom Perrotta's The Leftovers is a powerful and deeply moving book about regular people struggling to hold onto a belief in their futures.

About this title

Review:

Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2011: Author Tom Perrotta is a master at exposing the quiet desperation behind America’s suburban sheen. In The Leftovers he explores what would happen if The Rapture actually took place and millions of people just disappeared from the earth. How would normal people respond? Perrotta’s characters show a variety of coping techniques, including indifference, avoidance, depression, freaking out, and the joining of cults. Despite the exceptional circumstances, it’s really not unlike how people respond to more minor incidents in their lives (excepting cults). The result is a novel that’s a slow burn yet strangely compelling, one that leaves the reader pondering the story long after it’s over. In vivid and occasionally satiric prose, he takes a bizarre and abnormal event--the Rapture--and imagines how normal people would deal with being left behind. --Chris Schluep

About the Author:

TOM PERROTTA is the author of several works of fiction, including The Wishbones, Election, and Joe College. His novels Election and Little Children were made into acclaimed and award-winning movies. He lives outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0312363559
• ISBN 13: 9780312363550
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384