An Evening with TOM PERROTTA, "the Steinbeck of Suburbia!"

Join New York Times bestselling author as he launches his eleventh novel, . Called “moving, evocative, wise, and funny,” Perrotta unearths the buried ghosts of 1970s suburbia with tender complexity as he explores how the past haunts the present. Tom will be in conversation with , book critic for NPR member station WOSU.

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WOSU PUBLIC MEDIA and DREXEL THEATRE are Gramercy’s Community Partners for this program.

New York Times bestselling author Tom Perrotta, hailed by critics as “the Steinbeck of Suburbia” (Time), “our Balzac of the burbs” (Chicago Sun-Times), and “an American Chekhov” (The New York Times), offers Ghost Town, a gripping and darkly nostalgic tale about a tumultuous summer in 1970s suburban New Jersey, from the perspective of a middle-aged writer looking back on a series of events that changed his life—and the story he finally has the courage to tell.

Jimmy Perrini lives in 1970s suburban New Jersey, a few miles from Manhattan, but a world apart. At the end of eighth grade, after tragedy strikes, Jimmy finds himself lost in a fog of grief that alienates him from friends and family, drifting instead into troubling friendships with two older teenagers: one a notorious local burnout with a fast car, an endless supply of W**d, and a shaky grasp of reality; the other a smart, eccentric girl, whom Jimmy finds himself drawn to as they become entranced by her Ouija board, which may just offer the only salve to their grief.

As a fateful public drama unfolds, Jimmy is torn between the occult beyond and the cold realities of the place he has called home. Narrated by a much older Jimmy, a literary-turned-commercial novelist, Ghost Town reveals how the past haunts the present—the way our ghosts are always with us, even when we think we’ve left them behind.

Tom Perrotta is the author of eleven works of fiction, including Election and Little Children, both of which were made into Oscar-nominated films, and The Leftovers, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed, Peabody Award-winning HBO series. His other books include Bad Haircut, The Wishbones, Joe College, The Abstinence Teacher, Nine Inches, Mrs. Fletcher, and Tracy Flick Can’t Win. His work has been translated into a multitude of languages. Perrotta grew up in New Jersey and lives outside of Boston.

Kassie Rose is the book critic for WOSU 89.7 FM, an NPR member station broadcasting throughout Central Ohio, a position she has held for more than 25 years. In addition to reviews, she recommends books on WOSU All Sides Weekend Books with host Christopher Purdy. She has served as a Literature Advisory Panelist for the Ohio Arts Council and is a recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artists Grant. An avid reader and book collector, Kassie is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and The Aldus Society, which is a local chapter of the national Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies. She writes about books on her blog, TheLongestChapter.com.

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