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Book Review : Tom Perrotta - The Leftovers (2011)


Order THE LEFTOVERS here

Earlier this week, the co-pilot of a plane willingly drove his aircraft into the French alps, after locking the pilot outside the cockpit. This is one of the most terrible death I can think about, knowing you're about to have your life unfairly taken from you and not being able to do anything. A plane crash is something nobody wishes on anyone, because everyone is equally vulnerable to it. It's a collective fear. 

Author Tom Perrotta found a quite original way of exposing another visceral, collective fear in his novel THE LEFTOVERS: having loved one taken away from you forever, without ever being given a valid explanation. The book has been aptly turned into a television series by HBO and co-creator of LOST Damon Lindelof, but it's a different animal than the original material. THE LEFTOVERS of Tom Perrotta are quit unique, and terrifying in their own understated way.

The city of Mapleton was hit bad by the Sudden Departure. On October 14, a sizeable chunk of the population disappeared, just vanished into thin air. Not everybody lost a family member, but everybody lost someone or something that day. Life just isn't the same. THE LEFTOVERS picks up three years after the event and follows the life of mayor Kevin Garvey and his family, who are all trying to deal with the collective trauma in their own way. His wife Laurie jointed a homegrown cult called the Guilty Remnants, his son Tom quit college to follow a faith healer named Holy Wayne and his daughter Jill, once a straight A student, is still trying to figure it out, a bit like her father. 

Many readers were frustrated with THE LEFTOVERS because it systematically refuses to exploit its setting. If you're thinking about picking this novel up because you want to read a rapture mystery, don't. It's not what it's about. THE LEFTOVERS is, first and foremost, a realist novel about grief and collective trauma. Tom Perrotta is a heir to John Updike and Raymond Carver's brands of realism, and his prose shows the self-restraint and the emotional distance necessary to draw the burden of his characters correctly. There is not an ounce of melodrama in THE LEFTOVERS. In fact, if Perrotta cannot communicate emotion through dialogue, he's not afraid to turn to understatement and even irony.

The novel is not as sexy or dangerous.

What the fuck does it mean, though?

So you read this novel, empathize with the characters' sense of loss and then what? Is there a greater picture to THE LEFTOVERS? I do believe so, you have to know two things about it: 1) it's absolutely fucking terrifying and 2) I would mildly spoil the novel if I discussed it in details. What you have to know is that THE LEFTOVERS discusses the existence of God and the concept of organized religion, mainly through the Guilty Remnants, who are a strange mix between a yoga class, Davidians and a Jihadist organization. They are the embodiment of belief in the novel, of that borderline pathological need to believe in something greater than yourself. It's a little judgmental maybe, but there's no way around making judgment in THE LEFTOVERS. It's part of the religious theme, if you follow my drift.

THE LEFTOVERS was an interesting read, mainly because of Tom Perrotta's minimalist and understated prose. I don't think the novel was a riddle ever meant to be solved and despite that it's more accessible than, let's say DHALGREN, I believe it should be considered as the same type of novel, where the reader's background and beliefs dictate their own experience and to me, it's some kind of ultimate literary Bushido achievement. Only someone who mastered the form and purpose can offer a reader this much freedom. It's probably also why the reviews are so torn. I loved the experience though, I can't hide it. Don't see it as as a genre novel that stunted itself. See it as a literary novel that took liberties with realism. 

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