All avid readers[1] understand the ineffable joy that comes with knowing that your favorite author is publishing a new book. Their publication day is Christmas morning and your birthday rolled into a big, furious ball of literary bliss.
On June 7, Tom Perrotta, my favorite author, released the sequel to his 1998 novel “Election,” a riotous story about a high school overachiever running against a popular-but-vacuous jock for Student Body President, and the high school social studies teacher who tries to sabotage her.
Even if you’re unfamiliar with Perrotta’s books, you’ve likely seen one of the big or small screen adaptations of his work.
“Election” was adapted into a wildy entertaining film, directed by Alexander Payne and starring Reese Witherspoon, who plays Tracy Flick—the overachieving high school student—and Matthew Broderick as Mr. McAllister, the high school teacher.[2]
Then, in 2006, director Todd Field and Perrotta collaborated to adapt Perrotta’s 2004 novel “Little Children.” The film earned multiple Academy Award nominations, including nods for Kate Winslet as Best Lead Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay for Perrotta and Fields.
In 2014, HBO produced a series based on Perrotta’s novel “The Leftovers,” which followed the citizens of the fictional town of Mapleton after a traumatic event where nearly a third of the human population disappears in a single moment without any secular explanation.
The series ran from 2014-2017, and Mr. Perrotta was credited with a large portion of the screenwriting.
More recently, his 2017 novel “Mrs. Fletcher” became another 2019 HBO series starring Kathryn Hahn as Eve Fletcher, a divorcee in her mid-4os experiencing a sexual reawakening.
The novel was originally titled “The MILF” before the publishers had second thoughts.
Need I say more?
So when “Tracy Flick Can’t Win” arrived in the first week of June, it sat on my nightstand for nearly two weeks[3] as I finished reading the first novel by Steve Almond—another one of my favorite writers—titled “All the Secrets of the World.”
But I was apprehensive about starting “Tracy Flick Can’t Win” for a couple of reasons, which I’m also fairly certain that my fellow book-nerds will understand.
The first was the unlikely, but still daunting scenario, where—after enjoying the hell out of every one of Perrotta’s first nine books—I might be disappointed by his latest offering.
Fortunately, this was far from the case.
The other reason is a little more revealing of me, as a reader and a person.
You see, I’ve always struggled with impulse control and meting out pleasure[4]. And I knew that once I began “Tracy Flick Can’t Win” that I wouldn’t put it down until I was finished, which most people would view as a good thing.
But—for me—once I finished, I would have nothing left to look forward to really reading and return to literary purgatory until Mr. Perrotta publishes his next book. Nothing compares to my favorite author, and the thought of waiting many more years makes me anxious.
Alas, I read the new novel that follows Tracy Flick—the former high school overachiever and psychological poster-child of Type-A personalities—who is now in her 40s and working as a high school administrator vying to fill the principal position after her colleague Jack Weede decides to retire following a long and somewhat checkered career in education[5] in order to drive throughout the country in an RV with his wife, a cancer survivor, into a John Ford-esque horizon.
As Mr. Perrotta does better than any modern writer I’ve read—he’s been referred to as the Charles Dickens of the American suburb—he weaves bombproof humor with a pathos that few novelists possess.
He also incorporates the relevant topics of our time for readers to dissect. In “Tracy Flick Can’t Win,” he touches on the #Metoo Movement, CTE and head injuries, gender fluidity and school violence.
I could effusively praise the book, but I won’t. Just read it. And needless to say, “Tracy Flick Can’t Win” is already one of the highlights of my summer[6].
And while reading novels might seem antiquated in our modern world, for me, reading is an incomparable pleasure, a necessary exercise in empathy, and one of my life’s few quiet joys.
[1] Let me begin by acknowledging that avid readers are a dying breed. This is not spoken from an intellectual pulpit, or meant to seem judgmental or pretentious; it’s simply an empirical fact that book publishers can irrefutably verify.
[2] In a rare circumstance, the novel “Election” preceded the film by a little over a year.
[3] This summer has been an abundance of literary riches for me.
[4] Nothing exemplifies this better than the fact that I’ve put off writing this column for nearly four days as I’ve binge-watched the Netflix series “Ozark.” In fact, I’ve stopped now—finally—at Season 4: Episode 5, forcing myself to write the column before I finish the final nine episodes tonight.
[5] As an educator, I was both amused and impressed by Mr. Perrotta’s pitch-perfect depictions of public education from the inside.
[6] Admittedly, after being shot by a firework during our ‘Murica celebrations, the bar was considerably lowered this year.
