![]() ![]() I’m wondering if you think people will have similar instincts as we face this crisis, depending on how bad it gets. ![]() It was kind of flipping that, saying how little did it take to really shake our faith in the future and in ourselves?īooks: In “The Leftovers” when this event happens, religion is one of the ways that people try to make sense of it. But if it all just happened in a single day, without any explanation, what would that mean? I was definitely pushing against this convention in apocalyptic fiction, which is that 99 percent of humanity is wiped out and this small band of survivors is left to kind of preserve society. And so it’s clearly a number that we can withstand in the normal order of things. Perrotta: I think - I hope I’m right about this - it’s something like the annual death rate for global humanity. Perrotta spoke to the Globe by phone from his Belmont home.īooks: In “The Leftovers” it’s 2 percent of the population that disappears without a trace. ![]() In the midst of our coronavirus pandemic, we talked to him about loss and fear, and what happens after a great crisis. The slow, sad drift of this suburban world into various forms of cultic extremism as a response to upheaval feels spot on.In his 2011 book “The Leftovers,” the novelist Tom Perrotta wrote about the aftermath of a world-changing loss when 2 percent of the world’s human beings vanished inexplicably in one day. The Leftovers is, simply put, the best ‘Twilight Zone’ episode you never saw-not ‘The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street’ but ‘The Monsters Are Us in Mapleton.’ That they are quiet monsters only makes them more eerie. Though the tone is more comic than tragic, it is mainly empathic, never drawing a distinction between “good” and “bad” characters, but recognizing all as merely human-ordinary people dealing with an extraordinary situation.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred) “Perrotta has delivered a troubling disquisition on how ordinary people react to extraordinary and inexplicable events, the power of family to hurt and to heal, and the unobtrusive ease with which faith can slide into fanaticism. The novel is filled with those who have changed their lives radically or discovered something crucial about themselves, as radical upheaval generates a variety of coping mechanisms. Select Reviews “Perrotta’s most ambitious book to date.The premise is as simple as it is startling (certainly for the characters involved). ![]() The Leftovers is a powerful and deeply moving book about people struggling to hold onto a belief in their own futures. Through the prism of a single family, Perrotta illuminates a familiar America made strange by grief and apocalyptic anxiety. ![]()
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