Tom Perrotta

“I don’t want to write something that scares people away or makes them think, I didn’t go to college, so I won’t be able to understand this. To the extent that literature can actually be part of a cultural conversation right now, I’d like that conversation to be as inclusive as possible.”

New york times bestelling author

Academy Award Nominated Screenwriter

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“Sharp and perfectly executed…As ever, Perrotta writes incisively from several different points of view, illuminating the frustrated inner lives of his characters; call it Winesburg, N.J. Dominating it all is Tracy, whom the reader comes to understand better even through her cringeworthy machinations. This is the rare sequel that lives up to the original.”

— Publisher's Weekly starred review on Tracy Flick Can't Win

“Even more piercing than its predecessor... With a lyric, polyphonic intensity, [Perrotta] poses a question to the class: What have we learned?”

— The New York Times on Tracy Flick Can't Win

“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

“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 on Mrs. Fletcher

“The acclaimed novelist displays perfect tonal pitch in this story collection, as nobody explores the darker sides of suburbia with a lighter touch.”

— Kirkus Reivews starred review on Nine Inches

“Perrotta has delivered a troubling disquisition on how ordinary people react to extraordinary and inexplicable events, the power of family to hurt and to heal, and the unobtrusive ease with which faith can slide into fanaticism.”

— Stephen King on The Leftovers

Tom Perrotta is the bestselling author of ten works of fiction, including Election (Penguin, 1998) and Little Children (St. Martin’s Press, 2004), both of which were made into Oscar-nominated films, and The Leftovers (St.Martin’s Press, 2011), which was adapted into a critically acclaimed, Peabody Award-winning HBO series. His most recent novel, Tracy Flick Can't Win (Scribner, 2022) was praised as “even more piercing than its predecessor” by the New York Times. His other books include Bad Haircut (Bridge Works, 1994), The Wishbones (Berkeley, 1998) Joe College (St. Martin’s Press, 2006), The Abstinence Teacher (St. Martin’s Press, 2007), Nine Inches (St. Martin’s Press, 2019) and Mrs. Fletcher (Scribner, 2017), named one of the best books of 2017 by Esquire, the Los Angeles Times, GQ, and NPR. His work has been translated into a multitude of languages.

In an interview with The Rumpus, Perrotta commented on how he keeps going as a writer: “Like a lot of writers, I waver between irrational self-confidence and unwarranted self-doubt. There are days when I feel like an artist, and days when I feel like I can’t even write a decent sentence. But these feelings are almost always inspired by work in progress. I really don’t spend a lot of time kicking myself — or congratulating myself — for work I did in the past. The important thing is to keep moving, and to keep trying to make something new.”

Perrotta earned a B.A. in English from Yale University, and a M.A. in English/creative writing from Syracuse University. Perrotta grew up in New Jersey and lives outside of Boston.

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