The Leftovers

Remember about a year ago when there was a lot of press about the “End Times” and something called the “Rapture” was predicted to occur on May 21, 2011, and then when that failed to materialize (or de-materialize??), the prediction was changed to October  (also a bust)?

Tom Perrotta’s new novel The Leftovers, is a riff on the never-ending song of Doomsdayers (is that a word??).  In the prologue, we learn that “something tragic has occurred…a Rapture-like phenomenon, but it doesn’t appear to have been the Rapture.”  Millions of people all over the world have simply vanished into thin air, and the cause is “unknown” according to official government reports.  Those arguing most loudly against this phenomenon being labeled the Rapture are Christians because, “as far as anyone can tell, it was a random harvest, and the one thing the Rapture couldn’t be was random.  The whole point was to separate the wheat from the chaff, to reward the true believers and put the rest of the world on notice.  An indiscriminate Rapture was no Rapture at all.”  After all, one couldn’t help noticing that many “bad” people had been taken and many “good” people left behind: “the leftovers”.  How very disconcerting.

The story opens three years after the Sudden Departure (as it has come to be commonly referred to) has taken place.  No explanation or reason behind the phenomenon has become known or commonly held.  The author is not particularly interested in that aspect of the story. Instead, he takes us into the lovely suburban town of Mapleton and focuses our attention on one family who has survived the Sudden Departure physically intact, but emotionally and psychically damaged; who wouldn’t be?

Through these family members we get a very good sense of what the world is like post-Sudden Departure.  Each member of the Garvey family – Kevin (who has just recently become Mayor of Mapleton), Laurie (a happily, or so she thought, stay-at-home mom) and their children, Tom and Jill.
The family has taken some serious “hits” in the three years since the SD, and the novel recounts these events to bring us up to speed.  Kevin, who had retired early after selling a successful business, has been elected Mayor of Mapleton as the candidate of the “Hopeful Party.”  He epitomizes the “keep on keepin’on” guy; he yearns for everything to return to normal and works hard at it, despite all evidence to the contrary.  Laurie has left her family to join the Guilty Remnant Cult, a chain-smoking, silent cult of “watchers” who stalk the survivors reminding them that their days are most likely numbered.  Tom has dropped out of college and also joined a cult, the Holy Waynes, who “heal through hugging” and daughter Jill who alone has stayed with Kevin, struggles mightily to maintain some sense of understanding.  Jill is a Witness, someone who was with a person who vanished in the Sudden Departure and, as if that isn’t enough, has been abandoned by her mom, Laurie.

Other characters, like the Reverend Jamison who is mentally crushed at the unfairness of “missing the cut” and being left behind and Nora, who lost her entire family to the Sudden Departure, add additional dimensions to this very rich, very affecting novel.  Through these very different characters and their stories, we get a sense of just what a post-Rapture world might be actually be like.

The meaning of the title is obvious, of course; the leftovers are the folks who weren’t among the vanished, and yet, I think Perrotta takes its meaning to other levels within the novel.  At one point, Nora is thinking “We just had turkey for Thanksgiving and the leftovers last forever. It’s like, enough with the turkey already.”   I think Perrotta is talking about more than turkey here.  The weariness of the leftovers, the emotional pain, the drudgery of putting one foot in front of the other, the exertion of pretending must be exhausting; “enough with the turkey already”.

Perrotta also refers to leftover memories and the sadness/happiness associated with them.  And the terrifying void when they begin to fade; how does one deal with that empty space where someone’s face used to reside?

Not to say The Leftovers doesn’t include glimpses of hope; it does.  That glimmer of hope makes us care about what happens to the characters; we get a sense that maybe, just maybe, there are just enough leftovers to put the world back together again very, very slowly.