Book Review

 Tom Perrotta is a name I'll always notice; among his novels, "The Wishbones," "Election," "The Leftovers," and "Joe College" are my favorites. 

Perrotta's special skill is his ability to describe moments of mundane discomfort. We all live through these moments; we just don't commit them to the blank page. In the new novel, "Ghost Town," a young man, Jimmy, meets a stranger and bluntly concedes that his mother has just died. But then he thinks he sounds glib, so he offers a few sentences about his mourning. And he realizes that the sentences might be what they (in fact) are: nervous, meaningless throat-clearing. Life goes on.

"Ghost Town" is set in Garwood (called "Creamwood"), NJ, in the 1970s. Everyone is white; everyone smokes cigarettes. A dispute might involve a schoolteacher and a hippie at the local McDonald's. "I understand your flat feet kept you out of Vietnam...."

In this small town, Jimmy, a high-school student, suffers the loss of his mother. He finds that he is unmoored. He wastes his days masturbating while observing his sunbathing cousin; his literary ambitions are evident in the time he spends listening to Jethro Tull. A stranger--Eddie--comes to town. Eddie is older; he buys his marijuana at the front counter at Burger King. (The code is embedded in a question: "Do you want one ketchup packet--or two?") Eddie's thinking is often questionable. He seems racist. Also, he gives a strange account of his uncle's behavior: "Yes, he murdered his girlfriend--but he had caught her in bed with his buddy. She hadn't even removed her engagement ring. I mean....what was he *supposed* to do?"

Jimmy's squirmy semi-friendship with Eddie forms the spine of this novel. As in most other Perrotta works, there are twists and turns; my sense of emotional investment caught me by surprise.

This is a fast, elegant novel; you can speed through it in one sitting. Recommended.