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Loading... The Leftovers (original 2011; edition 2011)by Tom Perrotta
Work detailsThe Leftovers by Tom Perrotta (2011)
Pretty good, but too confusing for audio. I'm going to have to switch to paperback when it comes out.  usefuljack | May 17, 2013 |  Pretty good, but too confusing for audio. I'm going to have to switch to paperback when it comes out. usefuljack | May 17, 2013 | Well-crafted piece. Multiple sub-plots, excellent structure, and pacing of characters. Perfect ending. Perfect last line. Most impressive: Author does a great job switching 3rd POV limiteds. His cuts and "returns" are spot on. (  ) Kristin.vanNamen | Apr 27, 2013 | 2.5 for reals. I thought this was a wasted idea, a rapture-like event that is never really addressed, (spoiler?) simply used as a starting point to the story of several people's intertwined lives. The author describes it as a comic post apocolyptic novel, but I found the humour slight, the characters shallow and annoying, and the endless details of their everyday existence pretty damn boring. Super trite ending, too. But, it made you think, at least. (  )1  stacey2112 | Apr 22, 2013 | This was almost overwhelmingly melancholy. All over the world, in one moment, millions of people disappear: Buddists, Christians, atheists, murderers, and children. And then the people left behind are alone. Each of the characters in this story struggle with what it means to be left. One family stayed intact initially, but the wife and mother couldn't handle life after, choosing to join a religious cult. A woman, whose entire family, husband and children, disappeared, struggles to make sense of why they had been taken, and how she can continue on. Dark, sad, and thoughtful, this is no 'Left Behind' story, where the people not taken in the rapture must suffer and fight against an evil Anti-Christ. Instead, it's a look at people who survive a tragedy, and how they cope with their loneliness, grief and guilt. (  ) kayceel | Apr 18, 2013 |
 One might argue that The Leftovers is missing the details of the Sudden Departure that provide the book’s premise, but that is irrelevant to Perrotta’s purpose. In a post-9/11, post-economic-collapse world, we do not require an apocalyptic event to underwrite the plausibility of sudden, catastrophic change. Perrotta’s true interests — and the novel’s rich gifts — lie in exploring the way that traditional suburban structures of meaning fail to cohere under the pressure of such changes Perrotta suggests that in times of real trouble, extremism trumps logic and dialogue becomes meaningless. Read as a metaphor for the social and political splintering of American society after 9/11, it’s a chillingly accurate diagnosis.  It is the portions of “The Leftovers” where Mr. Perrotta avoids the more cartoony and melodramatic aspects of his story (having to do with the Sudden Departure and the Guilty Remnant) that are by far the most persuasive. And it is these same sections that showcase his gifts as a novelist: his talent for depicting the ordinary (as opposed to metaphoric or supernatural); his affectionate but astringent understanding of his characters and their imperfections; his appreciation of the dark undertow of loss that lurks beneath the familiar, glossy surface of suburban life.
References to this work on external resources.
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RatingAverage: (3.5)
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