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Table of Contents
About The Book
“Light, zingy, and laugh-out-loud funny” (People), the New York Times bestselling novel about sex, love, and identity as seen through the eyes of a middle-aged woman and her college freshman son.
A forty-six-year-old divorcee whose beloved only child has just left for college, Eve Fletcher is struggling to adjust to her empty nest. One night she receives a text from an anonymous number that says, “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 and taking a community college course on Gender and Society—Eve can’t curtail her own interest in a porn website that 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.
“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), 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. “Tom Perrotta’s latest might just be his best” (NPR).
Excerpt
It was a long drive and Eve cried most of the way home, because the big day hadn’t gone the way she’d hoped, not that big days ever did. Birthdays, holidays, weddings, graduations, funerals—they were all too loaded with expectations, and the important people in her life rarely acted the way they were supposed to. Most of them didn’t even seem to be working from the same script as she was, though maybe that said more about the important people in her life than it did about big days in general.
Take today: all she’d wanted, from the moment she opened her eyes in the morning, was a chance to let Brendan know what was in her heart, to express all the love that had been building up over the summer, swelling to the point where she sometimes thought her chest would explode. It just seemed really important to say it out loud before he left, to share all the gratitude and pride she felt, not just for the wonderful person he was right now, but for the sweet little boy he’d been, and the strong and decent man he would one day become. And she wanted to reassure him, too, to make it clear that she would be starting a new life just the same as he was, and that it would be a great adventure for both of them.
Don’t worry about me, she wanted to tell him. You just study hard and have fun. I’ll take care of myself . . .
But that conversation never happened. Brendan had overslept—he’d been out late, partying with his buddies—and when he finally dragged himself out of bed, he was useless, too hungover to help with the last-minute packing or the loading of the van. It was just so irresponsible—leaving her, with her bad back, to lug his boxes and suitcases down the stairs in the sticky August heat, sweating through her good shirt while he sat in his boxers at the kitchen table, struggling with the child-proof cap on a bottle of ibuprofen—but she managed to keep her irritation in check. She didn’t want to spoil their last morning together with petty nagging, even if he deserved it. Going out on a sour note would have been a disservice to both of them.
When she was finished, she took a few pictures of the van with the back hatch open, the cargo area stuffed with luggage and plastic containers, a rolled-up rug and a lacrosse stick, an Xbox console and an oscillating fan, a mini-fridge and a milk crate full of emergency food, plus a jumbo bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, because they were his favorite. She uploaded the least blurry photo to Facebook, along with a status update that read, Off to college! So happy for my amazing son, Brendan!!! Then she inserted the obligatory emoticon and launched her message into space, so her 221 friends would understand how she was feeling, and could let her know that they liked it.
It took a couple of tries to shut the hatch—the damn rug was in the way—but she finally got it closed and that was that. She lingered for a moment, thinking of other road trips, vacations they’d taken when Brendan was little, the three of them heading to Cape Cod to stay with Ted’s parents, and that one time camping in the Berkshires when it rained and rained—the earth turning liquid beneath their tent—and they had to pack it in and find a motel in the middle of the night. She thought she might cry right then—it was going to happen sooner or later—but before she could get herself started, Becca zoomed up the driveway on her bicycle, moving so swiftly and silently it felt like a sneak attack.
“Oh!” Eve flung up her arms in self-defense, though she was in no danger of being run over. “You scared me!”
Becca shot her a withering what-planet-are-you-from look as she dismounted, but the contempt came and went so quickly it was almost like it hadn’t been there at all.
“Good morning, Mrs. Fletcher.”
Eve bristled at the greeting. She’d told Becca numerous times that she preferred to be addressed by her first name, but the girl insisted on calling her Mrs. Fletcher, as if she were still married.
“Good morning, Becca. Shouldn’t you be wearing a helmet?”
Becca released the bike—it balanced on its own for a moment before toppling dreamily onto the grass—and patted her hair with both hands, making sure everything was where it was supposed to be, which of course it was.
“Helmets are gross, Mrs. Fletcher.”
Eve hadn’t seen Becca for a few weeks, and she suddenly realized how pleasant the interlude had been, and how she’d failed to appreciate it, the same way you fail to appreciate the absence of a stomachache until the cramps return. Becca was so petite and adorable, so totally put together—that cute little turquoise romper, those immaculate white sneakers, all that makeup, way too much for a teenager riding her bike on a summer morning. And she wasn’t even sweating!
“Well, then.” Eve smiled nervously, acutely conscious of her own body, the doughy pallor of her flesh, the dampness spreading from her armpits. “Something I can do for you?”
Becca shot her that frosty look again, letting her know that she’d used up her quota of stupid questions for the day.
“Is he inside?”
“I’m sorry, honey.” Eve nodded toward the van. “We’re just about to leave.”
“No worries.” Becca was already moving toward the house. “I just need a minute.”
Eve could have stopped her from going in—she totally had the right—but she didn’t feel like playing the role of bitchy, disapproving mom, not today. What was the point? Her mom days were over. And as much as she disliked Becca, Eve couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, at least a little. It couldn’t have been easy being Brendan’s girlfriend, and it must have hurt pretty badly to get dumped by him just weeks before he left for college, while she was marooned in high school for another year. He’d apparently done the dirty work by text and refused to talk to her afterward, just crumpled up the relationship and tossed it in the trash, a tactic he’d learned from his father. Eve could understand all too well Becca’s need for one last conversation, that vain hope for closure.
Good luck with that.
*
Figuring they could use a little space, Eve drove to the Citgo station to fill the tank and check the tire pressure, then stopped at the bank to withdraw some cash she could slip to Brendan as a parting gift. For books, she would tell him, though she imagined most of it would go for pizza and beer.
She was gone for about fifteen minutes—ample time for a farewell chat—but Becca’s bike was still resting on the lawn when she returned.
Too bad, she thought. Visiting hours are over . . .
The kitchen was empty, and Brendan didn’t respond when she called his name. She tried again, a little louder, with no more success. Then she checked the patio, but it was pure formality; she already knew where they were and what they were doing. She could feel it in the air, a subtle, illicit, and deeply annoying vibration.
Eve wasn’t a puritanical mom—when she went to the drugstore, she made a point of asking her son if he needed condoms—but she didn’t have the patience for this, not today, not after she’d loaded the van by herself and they were already way behind schedule. She made her way to the foot of the stairs.
“Brendan!” Her voice was shrill and commanding, the same one she’d used when he was a child misbehaving on the playground. “I need you down here immediately!”
She waited for a few seconds, then stomped up the stairs, making as much noise as possible. She didn’t care what they were doing. It was a simple matter of respect. Respect and maturity. He was leaving for college and it was time to grow up.
His bedroom door was closed and music was playing inside, the usual thuggish rap. She raised her hand to knock. The sound that stopped her was vague at first, barely audible, but it grew louder as she tuned in to its frequency, an urgent primal muttering that no mother needs to hear from her son, especially when she was feeling nostalgic for the little boy he’d been, the sweet child who’d clung so desperately to her leg when she tried to say goodbye on his first day of preschool, begging her to stay with him for just one more minute. Please, Mommy, just one little minute!
“Oh shit,” he was saying now, in a tone of tranquilized wonder. “Fuck yeah . . . Suck it, bitch.”
As if repulsed by a terrible odor, Eve lurched away from the door and beat a flustered retreat to the kitchen, where she made herself a cup of soothing peppermint tea. To distract herself while it steeped, she flipped through a catalogue from Eastern Community College, because she was going to have a lot of time on her hands from now on, and needed to find some activities that would get her out of the house, maybe bring her into contact with some interesting new people. She’d made it all the way up to Sociology, circling the classes that seemed promising and fit her schedule, when she finally heard footsteps on the stairs. A few seconds later, Becca stepped into the kitchen, looking rumpled but victorious, with a big wet spot on her romper. At least she had the decency to blush.
“Bye, Mrs. Fletcher. Enjoy the empty nest!”
*
The previous summer, when Eve and Brendan were visiting colleges, they’d had some lovely long drives together. Lulled by the monotony of the highway, he’d opened up to her in a way she’d forgotten was possible, talking easily and thoughtfully about a multitude of normally off-limits subjects: girls, his father’s new family, some of the options he was pondering for his undergraduate major (Economics, if it wasn’t too hard, or maybe Criminal Justice). He’d surprised her by showing some curiosity about her past, asking what she’d been like at his age, wondering about the guys she’d dated before she got married, and the bands she’d liked, and whether or not she’d smoked weed. They shared a motel room on the overnight trips, watching TV from their respective beds, trading the Doritos bag back and forth as they laughed at South Park and Jon Stewart. At the time, it had felt like they were entering a gratifying new phase of their relationship—an easygoing adult rapport—but it didn’t last. As soon as they got home they reverted to their default mode, two people sharing the same address but not much else, exchanging the minimum daily requirement of information, mostly, on her son’s side, in the form of grudging monosyllables and irritable grunts.
Eve had cherished the memory of those intimate highway conversations, and she’d been looking forward to another one that afternoon, a last chance to discuss the big changes that were about to unfold in both of their lives, and maybe to reflect a little on the years that were suddenly behind them, gone more quickly than she ever could have imagined. But how could they share a nostalgic moment when all she could think about were the awful words she’d heard through the bedroom door?
Suck it, bitch.
Ugh. She wanted to press a button and erase that ugly phrase from her memory, but it just kept repeating itself, echoing through her brain on an endless loop: Suck it, bitch . . . Suck it, bitch . . . Suck it . . . He’d uttered the words so casually, so automatically, the way a boy of her own generation might have said, Oh yeah, or Keep going, which would have been embarrassing enough from a mother’s perspective, but not nearly so disturbing.
She probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Back when Brendan was in middle school, Eve had gone to a PTA presentation on “Web-Savvy Parenting.” The guest speaker, an assistant county prosecutor, had given them a depressing overview of the internet landscape and the perils it posed for teenagers. He touched on sexting and cyberbullying and online predators, but the thing that really bothered him was the insane amount of pornography that kids were potentially exposed to every day, a tsunami of filth unprecedented in human history.
This isn’t a copy of Playboy hidden in the closet, okay? This is an unregulated cesspool of degrading images and extreme sexual perversion available to everyone in the privacy of their own bedrooms, regardless of their age or emotional maturity. In this toxic environment, it will take constant, unwavering vigilance to keep your kids safe, to protect their innocence and guard them from depravity. Are you prepared to meet this challenge?
Eve and the other mothers she’d spoken to were shaken by the grim picture he’d painted, but they agreed afterward that it was a little overdone. The situation was bad—there was no use denying it—but it wasn’t all that bad, was it? And even if it was, there was no practical way to monitor your kids’ every mouse click. You just had to teach the right values—respect and kindness and compassion, pretty much do unto others, not that Eve was religious—and hope that it provided a shield against the harmful images and sexist stereotypes that they would inevitably be exposed to. And that was what Eve had done, to the best of her ability, though it obviously hadn’t worked out the way she’d hoped.
Suck it, bitch.
It was a little late in the day for a big sex talk, but Eve felt like she had no choice but to let Brendan know how disappointed she was. What he’d said to Becca was not okay, and Eve needed to make that clear, even if it ruined their last day together. She didn’t want him to begin college without understanding that there was a fundamental difference between sexual relationships in real life and the soulless encounters he presumably watched on the internet (he insisted that he stayed away from all that crap, but his browser history was always carefully scrubbed, which was one of the warning signs she’d learned about at the PTA meeting). At the very least, she needed to remind him that it was not okay to call your girlfriend a bitch, even if that was a word you used jokingly with your male friends, even if the girl in question claimed not to mind.
And even if she really is one, Eve thought, though she knew it wasn’t helpful to her cause.
Brendan must have sensed that a lecture was imminent, because he did his best to seal himself off in the van, tugging the bill of his baseball cap low over his sunglasses, nodding emphatically to the hip-hop throbbing through his sleek white headphones. As soon as they got on the Pike, he reclined his seat and announced that he was taking a nap.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, which was the first halfway polite thing to emerge from his mouth all day. “I’m really tired.”
“You must be,” she said, larding her voice with fake sympathy. “You had a really busy morning. All that heavy lifting.”
“Ha ha.” He propped his bare feet on the dashboard. “Wake me when we get there, okay?”
He slept—or pretended to sleep—for the next two hours, not even leaving the van when she stopped at a rest area outside of Sturbridge. Eve resented it at first—she really did want to talk to him about sexual etiquette and respect for women—but she had to admit that it was a relief to postpone the conversation, which would have required her to confess that she’d been eavesdropping outside of his door and to quote the phrase that had upset her so much. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to say it out loud, not without grave embarrassment, and she had a feeling that Brendan would laugh and tell her that she’d heard wrong, that he would never say, Suck it, bitch, not to Becca or anyone else, and they’d end up disputing the basic facts of the case rather than discussing the issues that really mattered. He could be a pretty slippery customer when he needed to be; it was another trait he’d inherited from his father, a fellow master of denial and evasion.
Just let him rest, she thought, inserting a Neil Young CD into the slot, mellow old songs that left her with a pleasant feeling of melancholy, perfect for the occasion. We can talk some other time.
Eve knew she was being a coward, abdicating her parental responsibility, but letting him off the hook was pretty much a reflex at this point. The divorce had left her with a permanently guilty conscience that made it almost impossible for her to stay mad at her son or hold him accountable for his actions. The poor kid had been the victim of an elaborate bait and switch perpetrated by his own parents, who, for eleven years, had built a life for him that felt solid and permanent and good, and then—just kidding!—had ripped it out of his hands and replaced it with an inferior substitute, a smaller, flimsier version in which love had an expiration date and nothing could be trusted. Was it any wonder that he didn’t always treat other people with the kindness and consideration they deserved?
Not that it was Eve’s fault. Ted was the guilty party, the selfish bastard who’d abandoned a perfectly good family to start over with a woman he’d met through the Casual Encounters section of Craigslist (he’d falsely claimed his marital status was “Separated,” a self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one). Eve had been blindsided by his betrayal and devastated by his refusal to get counseling or make even a token effort to save the marriage. He just pronounced it dead and buried, unilaterally declaring the past two decades of his life to be a regrettable mistake and vowing to do better on his next try.
I have a second chance, he’d told her, his voice quivering with emotion. Do you see how precious that is?
What about me? she’d replied. What about your son? Aren’t we precious, too?
I’m a jerk, he explained. You both deserve better.
The whole world acknowledged her status as an innocent victim—even Ted agreed!—but Eve still felt complicit in the breakup. The marriage had been floundering for a long time before Ted found his way to Craigslist, and she hadn’t done a thing to make it better, hadn’t even admitted there was a problem. Through her own passivity, she had enabled the disaster, letting her husband drift away and her family fall apart. She’d failed as a wife, and therefore as a mother, and Brendan was the one who’d paid the price.
The damage he’d suffered was subtle and hard to pinpoint. Other people marveled at what an impressive young man he was and how well he’d weathered the divorce. Eve was delighted by the praise—it meant everything to her—and she even believed it, up to a point. Her son did possess a number of good qualities. He was handsome and popular, a gifted athlete who never lacked for female attention. He’d done well in school, good enough to be admitted to Fordham and Connecticut College, though he’d ultimately settled on Berkshire State University, partly because it was more affordable, but mainly, as he cheerfully informed anyone who asked, because BSU was a party school and he liked to party. That was how he presented himself to the world—as a big, friendly, fun-loving bro, a dude you’d totally want on your team or in your frat—and the world seemed happy to take him at his word.
To Eve, though, he was still the bewildered boy who couldn’t understand why his father had left and why they couldn’t just make him come home. For the first couple of months after Ted moved out, Brendan had slept with a picture of his dad under his pillow, and more than once she’d found him wide awake in the middle of the night, talking to the photo with tears streaming down his face. He’d toughened up over time—his muscles turned wiry and his eyes got hard and the picture disappeared—but something had gone out of him in the process, all the boyish softness and vulnerability that had touched her so deeply. He just wasn’t as nice a person as he used to be—not nearly as sweet or as kind or as lovable—and she couldn’t forgive herself for letting that happen, for not knowing how to protect him, or how to fix what was broken.
*
They hit a traffic jam on the edge of campus, a festive convoy of incoming freshmen and their families. Inching toward the Longfellow Residential Area, they were cheered along the way by clusters of upperclassmen in matching red T-shirts who were apparently being paid to greet the newcomers. Some of them were dancing and others were holding up handmade signs that said, Welcome Home! and First Years Rock! However mercenary its origins, their enthusiasm was so infectious that Eve couldn’t help grinning and waving back.
“What are you doing?” Brendan muttered, still grumpy from his nap.
“Just being friendly,” she said. “If that’s all right with you.”
“Whatever.” He slumped lower in his seat. “Knock yourself out.”
Brendan had been assigned to Einstein Hall, one of the infamous high-rise dorms that made Longfellow look like a public housing project. Eve had heard alarming things about the party culture in this part of campus, but the vibe seemed reassuringly wholesome as they pulled into the unloading area and were swarmed by a crew of cheerful and efficient student movers. Within minutes, the movers had emptied the van, transferring all of Brendan’s possessions into a big orange bin on wheels. Eve stood by and watched, happy to be spared another round of sweaty labor. A scruffy kid whose T-shirt identified him as Crew Leader shut the hatch and gave her a businesslike nod.
“Okay, Mom. We’ll take this fine young man up to his room now.”
“Great.” Eve locked the van with the remote key. “Let’s go.”
The crew leader shook his head. Despite the ninety-degree heat, he was wearing a knitted winter cap with earflaps, the material so sweat-stiffened that the flaps curled out like Pippi Longstocking’s pigtails. “Not you, Mom. You need to move your vehicle to the Visitors Lot.”
This didn’t seem right to Eve. She’d seen lots of other mothers heading into the dorm with their kids. An Indian lady in a lime-green sari was accompanying her daughter at that very moment. But even as Eve began to point this out, she realized that the other mothers must have had husbands who were taking care of the parking. Everyone seemed to agree that this was the proper division of labor—the men parked the cars while the women stayed with their kids. Eve softened her voice, pleading for clemency.
“I’ll just be a few minutes. I need to help him unpack.”
“That’s great, Mom.” An edge of impatience had entered the crew leader’s voice. “But first you have to move the vehicle. There’s a lot of people waiting.”
I’m not your mom, Eve thought, smiling with excruciating politeness at the officious little shit. If she had been his mother, she would have advised him to lose the hat. Sweetie, she would have told him, you look like a moron. But she took a deep breath and tried to appeal to his humanity.
“I’m a single parent,” she explained. “He’s my only child. This is a big deal for us.”
By this point, Brendan had tuned in to the negotiation. He turned and glared at Eve.
“Mom.” His voice was clipped and tense. “Go park the car. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
The crew leader patted her on the arm.
“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “We’ll take good care of your baby.”
*
The Visitors Lot was only a short drive away, but the walk back to Einstein took longer than she’d expected. By the time she made it up to Brendan’s room on the seventh floor, he was already in full-tilt male bonding mode with his new roommate, Zack, a broad-shouldered kid from Boxborough with a narrow, neatly trimmed beard that hugged his jawline like a chin strap, the same ill-advised facial hair that Brendan had sported for most of senior year. They were wearing identical outfits, too—flip-flops, baggy shorts, tank tops, angled baseball caps—though Zack had spiced up his ensemble with a puka shell necklace.
He seemed nice enough, but Eve had to work to conceal her disappointment. She’d hoped that Brendan would get a more exotic roommate, a black kid from inner-city Boston, or a visiting student from mainland China, or maybe a gay guy with a passion for musical theater, someone who would expand her son’s horizons and challenge him to move beyond his suburban comfort zone. Instead he’d gotten paired with a young man who could have been his long-lost brother, or at least a teammate on the Haddington High lacrosse team. When she arrived, the boys were admiring their matching mini-fridges.
“We could dedicate one to beer,” Zack suggested. “The other could be for non-beer shit, lunch meat and whatever.”
“Totally,” agreed Brendan. “Milk for cereal.”
“Arizonas.” Zack fingered his puka shells. “Might be cool if we stacked one on top of the other. Then it would be like one medium-sized fridge with two compartments. Give us more floor space that way.”
“Sweet.”
Eve went straight to work, putting sheets and blankets on Brendan’s bed and organizing his closet and dresser just the way they were at home, so he wouldn’t be disoriented. Neither boy paid much attention to her—they were strategizing about maybe lofting one of the beds and moving a desk underneath, freeing up enough space for a couch, which would make it easier to play video games—and she told herself that it was completely natural for a mother to be ignored in a situation like this. This was their room and their world; she was an outsider who would soon be on her way.
“Where would we get a couch?” Brendan wondered.
“People just leave ’em out on the street,” Zack explained. “We can go out later and pick one up.”
“Is that sanitary?” Eve asked. “They could have bedbugs.”
“Mom.” Brendan silenced her with a head shake. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”
Zack stroked his beard like a philosopher. “We could cover it with a sheet, just to be on the safe side.”
It was almost five thirty by the time Eve got everything unpacked. She saved the area rug for last, positioning it between the two beds so no one’s feet would be cold on winter mornings. It was a nice homey touch.
“Not bad,” she said, glancing around with satisfaction. “Pretty civilized for a dorm room.”
Brendan and Zack nodded in that subdued male way, as if they could barely rouse themselves to express agreement, let alone gratitude.
“Who wants dinner?” she asked. “Pizza’s on me.”
A quick, wary glance passed between the roommates.
“You know what, Mom? A bunch of guys from the floor are going out in a little while. I’ll probably grab some food with them, okay?”
Jesus, Eve thought, a sudden warmth flooding her face. That was quick.
“Sure,” she said. “Go ahead. Enjoy yourselves.”
“Yeah,” Brendan added. “This way you won’t have to drive home in the dark.”
“All right, then.” Eve scanned the room, searching fruitlessly for another task. “Looks like that’s it.”
No one contradicted her.
“Okay.” She smoothed Brendan’s bedspread one last time. She had a slightly dizzying sense of being overtaken by time, the future becoming the present before she was ready. “Guess I better be going.”
Brendan walked her to the elevators. It wasn’t an ideal place to say goodbye—too many kids milling around, including a crew of student movers pushing an empty bin—but there was nothing they could do about that.
“Oh, by the way . . .” Eve fumbled in her purse and found the cash she’d withdrawn that morning. She pressed the bills into Brendan’s hand, then gave him a fierce hug and a quick kiss. “Just call me if you need anything, okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
She hugged him again when the elevator arrived. “I love you.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Me too.”
“I’m going to miss you. A lot.”
“I know.”
After that, there was nothing to do but climb aboard and wave to her son until the doors slid shut. For a few seconds, the elevator didn’t move. Eve smiled awkwardly at the other passengers, all of them students, none of whom responded in kind. They were chatting excitedly among themselves, making plans, bubbling over with enthusiasm, utterly oblivious to her presence. Eve felt old and excluded, as if everyone else was going to a party to which she hadn’t been invited. It’s not fair, she wanted to tell them, but they were already going down, and nobody would have believed her anyway.
Reading Group Guide
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Introduction
Building on the gentle but incisive social satire of Little Children, The Leftovers, and Election, Tom Perrotta’s masterful new work, Mrs. Fletcher, returns the reader to the complicated (and often comical) world of the sexual mores of the American suburbs. When Eve Fletcher’s beloved only child, Brendan, starts college, she’s left all alone and full of questions about how and with whom to live the rest of her life, while miles away Brendan struggles with questions of his own—about how to treat women, understand his relationship with his divorced parents, and grow into a responsible sexual being. As Eve and Brendan separately struggle with their sexualities and self-conceptions, mother and son set out on journeys of discovery that lead them to unexpected places and, after two wild parties, to a dramatic collision.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1. The novel opens with Eve privately lamenting that “big days” (page 3) are never as special as they should be. Are there other “big days,” beyond dropping Brendan off at college, that fail to go the way she hopes?
2. Receiving that fateful, inappropriate text message—“U r my MILF!” (page 40)—has a profound effect on Eve, plunging her into the world of MILF porn and ongoing sexual fantasies about other women. Why do you think the text impacts Eve so deeply? How relevant do you think it is that her sexual exploration begins because someone else sees her as desirable, rather than emerging from solely internal motivation?
3. How are the dynamics of Eve and Amanda’s “date” influenced by Eve’s consumption of porn? Do you see her porn use as compulsive? Empowering? Something else?
4. At their dinner out, Eve and Amanda invent names for their alter egos: Ursula and Juniper. Does Eve’s engagement with Amanda, taking a Gender and Society class, and sexual acting out feel like an embrace of this alter ego? Do you think Eve is trying to “find herself,” or is she trying to become someone else?
5. Brendan occupies a position of privilege in the world and on his college campus, yet he can’t seem to adjust to his new environment. Why do you think that is? Is it related to his sense of privilege, or does his discomfort come from elsewhere?
6. How would you describe the relationship between Brendan and Zack at first? What changes? Why do you think Zack distances himself from the friendship?
7. Brendan and Julian are both young, straight, white cisgender men taking college classes, yet they occupy their positions of privilege in very dissimilar ways. What do they have in common, and how are they different?
8. Despite herself, Eve is attracted to Julian and Amanda—both generationally younger and more progressive than she is. What do you think she finds appealing about each of them?
9. Amber uses the Autism Awareness Network to bond with Brendan and to try to engage him politically. What are her plans for him? On page 126, she says, “That’s how we change the world. One person at a time.” Is Amanda trying to “change” Brendan, and if so, does she succeed?
10. Brendan is jealous of his dad’s relationship with Jon-Jon, his autistic half-brother, even though Jon-Jon is fairly low-functioning. When he has a temper tantrum on Parents Weekend, Brendan thinks about “how unfair it was that my father loved him so much and held him so tight—way tighter than he’d ever held me—and wouldn’t let go no matter what” (page 137). Can you empathize with Brendan’s pain, or do you think he is just being selfish?
11. When Amber and Brendan hook up, they have a sexual miscommunication that leads her to regard him as a “huge disappointment” (page 207). What’s Brendan’s role in the situation? What’s Amber’s?
12. By the time Eve, Amanda, and Julian have sex together, each has been fantasizing about the others for weeks or months. When their private fantasies enter the public sphere, what changes?
13. Eve texts Julian a picture of herself, but she won’t go over to his parents’ house to have sex with him. Why does she draw the line there? Do you think her reluctance to fully engage with Julian is about their age difference, or morality, or self-respect, or fear, or something else entirely? As a reader, does their age difference matter to you? And does it involve a different ethical calculation than it would if she were an older man and he a younger woman?
14. Professor Fairchild is an example of a character who, unlike Eve, has undergone a significant and permanent transformation. What do you make of their friendship? What does Eve hope to get from Margo, and Margo from Eve?
15. At the end of the novel, Eve settles back into conventionality, embracing a heterosexual relationship with someone her own age. At their wedding, however, Eve has a moment of doubt: she wonders if it was George, her soon-to-be husband, who sent her the MILF text message all those months ago. Who do you think it was? So much of Mrs. Fletcher is about characters’ hidden fantasies, unknown to all but the reader—except when those fantasies break through into real life, as they do with Eve, Julian, and Amanda. Do you think the characters we know less about have secret selves, secret “Ursulas,” too? Does everyone?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. Mrs. Fletcher is being developed as an HBO series. Consider watching some of Tom Perrotta’s earlier works that have made the leap to the screen, like The Leftovers, Little Children, and Election and discussing them as a group.
2. Explore your local community college. Do they offer Gender Studies classes or lectures on gender and sexuality? Would you be interested in attending one as a group?
Product Details
- Publisher: Scribner (May 1, 2018)
- Length: 320 pages
- ISBN13: 9781501144035
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Raves and Reviews
PRAISE FOR MRS. FLETCHER:
""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
"At times morbidly funny and, at others, grim, “Mrs. Fletcher” signals a return to familiar territory for Mr. Perrotta — sex, school and suburbia ... While “Mrs. Fletcher” may sound, from a plot summary, like an R-rated comedy or the outline for a raunchy Judd Apatow movie, it is more melancholy than many of his earlier books. Sex and pornography often serve as shorthand for characters’ loneliness and their search for self-worth."
—The New York Times
"Light, zingy, and laugh-out-loud funny."
—People
"Satisfying, wise and deeply appealing, flying by in a day or two of nonstop immersion, and in Eve's character it has true insight into the strangeness of all those anonymous American suburbs — the simultaneous comfort and loneliness of a generic place, a common life."
—The Chicago Tribune
"Sublimely funny ... in this shimmeringly satisfying novel, Perrotta uses the sense of loneliness like a propeller, raising these characters into glorious flight if they can just let themselves trust they have wings."
—San Francisco Chronicle
"Raunchy, hilarious, and unexpectedly sweet ... [Perrotta's] latest might just be his best — it's a stunning and audacious book, and Perrotta never lets his characters take the easy way out. Uncompromisingly obscene but somehow still kind-hearted, Mrs. Fletcher is one for the ages."
—NPR
"The sinews of Perrotta’s fiction, rather, are the tensions within and between characters, tensions that he steadily and artfully amplifies until the reader becomes possessed by curiosity about how they’ll be resolved ... "Mrs. Fletcher" is lit up by flashes of acute observation."
—The New Yorker
"[A] fantastic tease ... [Perrotta] knows how to capture the hilarious contradictions of teenagers."
—The Washington Post
"Perrotta has been called the “Steinbeck of suburbia” and an “American Chekhov,” but with Mrs. Fletcher, he’s become the Jane Austen of 21st century sexual mores ... [Mrs. Fletcher is] a delicious, tragicomic and finally forgiving take on the mistakes we modern people can’t seem to stop making. Mrs. Fletcher is a delight."
—Newsday
"Mrs. Fletcher is an intelligent novel that weaves together all the old issues about relationships along with contemporary issues of identity ... Perrotta expertly explores sexual identity, gender, pornography, and sex. This is a novel about overcoming ignorance. It urges readers to take advantage of opportunities for self-analysis and enlightenment. We must listen to each other’s stories."
—Los Angeles Review of Books
"Perrotta’s eye for contemporary mores and social details remains razor-sharp ... More spot-on satire with heart and soul from a uniquely gifted writer."
—Kirkus Reviews
“From the thrill of learning of its existence, to the feverish turning of pages, to the contemplative afterglow that comes from having finished: there’s nothing like a new Tom Perrotta novel. Mrs. Fletcher is all you dream it will be: hilarious, provocative (a little too), relatable, and every moment a joy ride.”
—Maria Semple, bestselling author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Today Will Be Different
“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
PRAISE FOR TOM PERROTTA:
“Tom Perrotta is a truth-telling, unshowy chronicler of modern-day America."
—New York Times Book Review
"Tom Perrotta writes with a satirist's ear and the heart of a romantic."
—Jennifer Egan
"Perrotta is that rare combination: a satirist with heart…Those who haven't curled up on the couch with this writer's books are missing a very great pleasure."
—Seattle Times
“He's the Steinbeck of suburbia.”
—Time
"Our Balzac of the burbs."
—Chicago Sun Times
"An American Chekov."
—New York Times Book Review
"...Prose so affable that the pages keep turning without hesitation. With Perrotta at the controls, you buy the set-up and sit back as he takes off.”
—Chicago Sun Times
"Tom Perrotta has to be considered one of our true genius satirists."
—Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River
"Perrotta [is] funny and deeply touching... A writer who's here for the long haul."
—Tobias Wolff
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