Meet Mr. Perrotta and ‘Mrs. Fletcher’
Best-selling author Tom Perrotta’s new novel Mrs. Fletcher (Scribner) is a juicy tale about Eve, a middle-age divorcée who’s spreading her wings sexually, and her jock son, Brendan, who gets himself into politically incorrect trouble at college. Perrotta’
The author discusses sex, humor and his latest novel with USA TODAY
Q There’s some pretty racy stuff going on in the suburbs in Mrs. Fletcher. Your main character, Eve, is almost a Mrs. Robinson — although a more likable version — for the 21st century. A She
gets the (anonymous) text version of an obscene phone call … and she discovers this world of amateur porn in which middle-age women are sharing their sex lives with the world. And it comes at a time when she’s feeling lonely and she’s also feeling past her prime. She starts looking at this porn somewhat compulsively and as she does, the lines between fantasy and reality start to blur. Q I’m almost afraid to ask what kind of research you had to do for this book. A I’ve
always been interested in sexuality, anyone who knows my books knows that. Being a parent has been an eyeopening and complicated experience. One of the things it made me see is that the sexual revolution is ongoing. Our sexual culture seems to change generation to generation. … I think one of the things that’s changed between my generation and that of my kids is the arrival of Internet porn and the everyday availability of just an enormous amount of sexual information. Q What’s the secret to blending humor with more serious social issues?
AI
don’t think of humor as trivial or incompatible with serious thinking. The really important thing for me in blending humor and anything else in my books is that the humor comes from the character, that it isn’t inflicted on the character. I think if you sacrifice your character for a joke, the reader won’t take them seriously ever again. Q Were you on the set in Australia during the final season of The Leftovers? A Yes, and I was there the day that (series stars) Carrie Coon and Justin Theroux filmed that amazing final scene with
their two monologues. To be there and watch it happen, and be there with Damon Lindelof, the creator of Lost, and my co-creator on The Leftovers — we were just very moved by what we were seeing and very proud and just in awe of our performers. Q And now you’re developing Mrs. Fletcher for HBO as a half-hour series. Is Reese Witherspoon available? Do you have somebody in mind yet to play Eve? AI
don’t. With The Leftovers, I’d never heard of Carrie Coon and I wasn’t that aware of Justin Theroux, and we found them in the process. We wrote a pilot without actors in mind. Carrie Coon read for Nora, and Damon and I just looked at each other with this feeling of immense excitement: There she is! We didn’t know what we were looking for, but there she was. And so I’d like to keep that kind of open mind for