Tom Perrotta

A glimpse into parallel lives in a suburban town Tom Perrotta has made recognizably his in novels like ELECTION, LITTLE CHILDREN and this fall's THE LEFTOVERS. Clay wouldn't have said his life was defined by his place on the high school football team's roster, but when he's sidelined by injury, everything, including his sense of self, seems different. And, it's not just that his concussion was bad enough to cause his parents and doctors to worry,...

"Tracy Flick is back and, once again, the iconic protagonist of Tom Perrotta's Election--and Reese Witherspoon's character from the classic movie adaptation--is determined to take high school politics by storm.Tracy Flick is a hardworking assistant principal at a public high school in suburban New Jersey. Still ambitious but feeling a little stuck and underappreciated in midlife, Tracy gets a jolt of good news when the longtime principal, Jack Weede,...

A group of young suburban parents, including a stay-at-home dad, a former feminist, and an over-structured mom, finds its sleepy existence shattered when a convicted child molester moves back into town and two of the parents have an affair.

What if—whoosh, right now, with no explanation—a number of us simply vanished? Would some of us collapse? Would others of us go on, one foot in front of the other, as we did before the world turned upside down? That's what the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, who lost many of their neighbors, friends and lovers in the event known as the Sudden Departure, have to figure out. Because nothing has been the same since it happened—not marriages, not...