From Powells.com
Staff Pick
It starts, as so many good stories do, with a bit of a mystery: Who is the anonymous texter behind the message, "U R my MILF!" that Eve Fletcher receives one night? And why can't she stop thinking about it? The events that follow are topical, hilarious, absurd, and completely plausible. In Mrs. Fletcher, Perrotta chronicles modern suburban angst with astonishing acuity and wit. A thoroughly enjoyable read! Recommended By Lauren P., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
From the
New York Times bestselling author of
The Leftovers and
Little Children comes a penetrating and hilarious new novel about sex, love, and identity on the frontlines of America's culture wars.
Eve Fletcher is trying to figure out what comes next. A forty-six-year-old divorcee whose beloved only child has just left for college, Eve is struggling to adjust to her empty nest when one night her phone lights up with a text message. Sent from an anonymous number, the mysterious sender tells Eve, "U R my MILF " Over the months that follow, that message comes to obsess Eve. While leading her all-too-placid life--serving as Executive Director of the local senior center by day and taking a community college course on Gender and Society at night--Eve can't curtail her own interest in a porn website called MILFateria.com, which features the erotic exploits of ordinary, middle-aged women like herself. Before long, Eve's online fixations begin to spill over into real life, revealing new romantic possibilities that threaten to upend her quiet suburban existence.
Meanwhile, miles away at the state college, Eve's son Brendan--a jock and aspiring frat boy--discovers that his new campus isn't nearly as welcoming to his hard-partying lifestyle as he had imagined. Only a few weeks into his freshman year, Brendan is floundering in a college environment that challenges his white-dude privilege and shames him for his outmoded, chauvinistic ideas of sex. As the New England autumn turns cold, both mother and son find themselves enmeshed in morally fraught situations that come to a head on one fateful November night.
Sharp, witty, and provocative, Mrs. Fletcher is a timeless examination of sexuality, identity, parenthood, and the big clarifying mistakes people can make when they're no longer sure of who they are or where they belong.
Review
“Tom Perrotta has always been a smart, fearless writer, a wet-your-pants-funny satirist who will in the very next sentence ambush you with genuine emotion. Buckle your seat belt and surrender your dignity, because Mrs. Fletcher is a romp.” Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls
Review
"[Perrotta] explores the redefining of American sex lives by technology....Mrs.Fletcher is a wry, compassionate novel about the ramifications of porn filtering so effortlessly into mainstream culture, without hysteria or accusations. Perrotta [is] well-versed in capturing the manifold follies and fetishes of human behavior....One of the sharpest elements of Mrs. Fletcher is how Perrotta presents two opposing forces colliding on campus: porn culture and PC culture." The Atlantic
Review
"Mrs. Fletcher, Perrotta’s seventh novel and first since 2011’s The Leftovers, operates and succeeds in ways that will be pleasingly familiar to his admirers. It uses a fecund premise, a large cast of recognizable characters, a rotating point of view, a propulsive plot, a humane vision and clean, non-ostentatious...prose to explore a fraught cultural topic. There be dragons, yes, but decency mitigates the danger. Mrs. Fletcher is the sweetest and most charming novel about pornography addiction and the harrowing issues of sexual consent that you will probably ever read."
The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Tom Perrotta is the bestselling author of eight works of fiction, including Election and Little Children, both of which were made into critically acclaimed movies, and The Leftovers, which was adapted into an HBO series. He lives outside Boston.
Tom Perrotta on PowellsBooks.Blog
“Mrs. Robinson” by Simon & Garfunkel
An overture for the novel, an inspiration for the title, and a tribute to an icon of mature female sexuality. Weirdly, Anne Bancroft was only 35 when
The Graduate was filmed, over a decade younger than Mrs. Fletcher is in the book...
Read More»