Mrs. Fletcher

June 19, 2017
Divorced since her husband decamped years ago, 46-year-old Eve Fletcher is bereft when her son, Brendan, whom she has helicopter-parented, goes off to college. Receiving a shocking anonymous email—“U r my MILF! Send me a naked pic!!”—reawakens her sexual fantasies. Watching porn satisfies her for a while, but soon she’s tempted to kiss her assistant at her job as director of a senior center. Then 17-year-old Julian, who was in Brendan’s high school class, confesses that he has the hots for her. Eventually there is a session of three-way sex that leaves Eve (her given name can’t be accidental) free to discover the sexual partner who will make her happy. Meanwhile, Brendan, who has considered college a chance to party and get wasted every night, while “trash-talking and playing video games’’ receives some jolts to his self-satisfied ego and comes home to finish growing up. Perrotta (The Leftovers) covers the gamut of sexual issues in this made-for-TV comedy of errors: Brendan’s former girlfriend rebels against being a sexual doormat; Brendan’s roommate vows to stop sexually demeaning girls. Every character here exists in a state of sexual arousal, and the happy ending finds each of them in a satisfying relationship.

June 1, 2017
In Perrotta's latest (Nine Inches: Stories, 2013, etc.), a mother and son experience existential tizzies following his departure for college.As is often the case with Perrotta's fiction, it takes a while to warm up to his protagonists, who make their first appearances while engaged in off-putting, though wincingly credible, behavior. Brendan Fletcher nurses a hangover while his mother lugs his boxes and suitcases downstairs and packs the van; Eve is both such a patsy and so weirdly controlling that once they get to Berkshire State University, she hangs around Brendan's dorm, "organizing his closet and dresser just the way they were at home," before her mortified son makes it clear that she should, like, leave. We soon grow fond of Eve, compassionate director of the Haddington Senior Center and, after she signs up for a community college course on "Gender and Society," the friend and confidante of its transgender professor, Margo Fairchild. Brendan initially seems set to be the same sexist jock in college that he was in high school, until he's thrown radically off course by a girl named Amber. It's not such a stretch that she gets him involved in the Autism Awareness Network--his stepbrother from his father's new marriage is on the spectrum--but getting him to join a protest about Michael Brown's death in Ferguson is pretty startling. Of course, it's mostly because Amber is really pretty, but Perrotta invites us to appreciate the slow growth of Brendan's awareness that there are actually other people in the universe in tandem with Eve's pleasant discovery of her unexpected sexual appeal for younger men--and a taste for internet porn. Perrotta's eye for contemporary mores and social details remains razor-sharp; his portraits of the substantial supporting cast are equally keen and tempered with compassion. There are no bad guys here, just fallible human beings trying to grab some happiness. The deliberately inconclusive conclusion points Eve and Brendan toward that goal but doesn't promise they'll get there. More spot-on satire with heart and soul from a uniquely gifted writer.

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March 15, 2017
Beloved best seller Perrotta again digs wisely and gleefully into our social upsets with the story of quiet 46-year-old divorcee Eve Fletcher, who dutifully runs the local senior center and takes community college courses. After her only child heads off to college, she receives an anonymous text that says, "U R my MILF!" That draws her to a porn website called MILFateria.com, and soon she's entertaining the possibility of romance. Meanwhile, her son's privileged-white-guy retrosexism isn't playing out well at college. With a seven-city tour.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 2, 2017
The enticing audio edition of Perrotta’s latest novel features a large cast tackling the perspectives of multiple characters. Top-billed actors Coon and Whitrock shine in giving voice to the two main characters, 40-something divorcée Eve Fletcher and her college-freshman son, Brandon. Actor Coon—who played Nora Durst in the HBO adaptation of Perrotta’s novel The Leftovers—splendidly captures the essence of both empty-nest loneliness and nascent erotic liberation in her portrayal of Eve. Whitrock oozes self-absorbed arrogance and angst as high-school hot shot turned clueless college kid Brandon. The pair’s most memorable moments center on their coming to terms with embarrassing matters of sexuality. Together with the other actors, Coon and Whitrock use subtle vocal mannerisms and pacing to convey the palpable sense of tension surrounding the convoluted romantic triangle at the heart of the story. The group effort hooks listeners from the start. A Scribner hardcover.