Mrs. Fletcher

Tom Perrotta

At this point, Tom Perrotta is likely best known as the author of The Leftovers, but it’s probably the least like his other books. From that metaphysical bleakness, Perrotta has returned to the domestic landscape of his previous work with Mrs. Fletcher, a smart, comic novel about suburban sex.

After her son leaves for college, Eve suddenly discovers life is great as an empty nester. She starts taking a course called Gender and Society at a local community college, makes a bunch of new friends, and finds herself awakening to new realities of the world. A wayward text from a stranger drunkenly dubs her a MILF (“U R my MILF!”), and from that, Eve finds a new confidence in her sex life, too. (She also gets very into a website called MILFateria.com, which is, well, you can probably guess what it is.)

Meanwhile, her son, Brendan, a jock in high school, is not having the time of his life, as he expected he would entering freshman year of college. Instead, he’s going through something akin to Channing Tatum in 21 Jump Street: the realization that the world has moved past clueless, sexist bully behavior. The Brendan chapters (told in first person, as opposed to Eve’s third person) are among the funniest in Mrs. Fletcher, as Perrotta finds his strongest footing imitating the voice of a bro.

Books that try to talk about sex and technology often fall flatter than a Match.com ad. Happily, I can report Mrs. Fletcher is the rare exception. There’s a touch of melodrama, but the low stakes keep everything grounded. Nothing here gets tragic. And through the amusing ironies of Eve, Brendan, and everyone they seem to interact with, Tom Perrotta has returned to form—and reminded us that it’s a very good form.

Eastman Was Here

Alex Gilvarry

Eastman Was Here is a bit of a dude book. At its center, a dude (natch). This one is named Alan Eastman, a once venerable, now washed-up journalist going through a second divorce. He drinks, he fucks, and he can’t help that he’s an asshole. Also: kind of an idiot. In a misguided attempt to win back his ex, Eastman heads to Saigon to cover the end of the Vietnam War.

The book takes a bit to get going, and with the exception of a loose reference to a banyan tree, the setting never really feels like it’s moved abroad, but Gilvarry’s brash and occasionally crude sense of humor keeps Eastman Was Here moving at a good clip. Gradually, the book reveals itself as a clever send-up of Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, Richard Ford, and anyone else you might consider a classic white-guy writer. Sure, Eastman is sympathetic, but we’re left to recognize that he’s a product of a bygone era—his misogyny is bespoke, left behind in the social upheaval of the ’70s. It’s why the novel’s title is set in the past tense.

The novel’s brightest and most interesting character is another journalist, Anne Channing, presented here as a foil to Eastman. She is competent and unwilling to cave to Eastman’s dude-liness, often the self-aware stand-in for the reader. At one point, Eastman attempts to mansplain why men are more suited to writing than women (men are less sentimental). Later, as an apology, Eastman sends Channing flowers. But she doesn’t offer her forgiveness, which may underscore Eastman Was Here’s smartest idea: that the only way men will learn is if you withhold what they feel entitled to.

Autumn

Karl Ove Knausgård