A gripping and darkly nostalgic tale, ‘Perrotta at his finest’ (Ron Charles), 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 weed, 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 is an ‘emotional wallop [that] nails the restless ennui of adolescence’ (People), revealing how the past haunts the present and the way our ghosts are always with us, even when we think we’ve left them behind.
Genre: Literary Fiction
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 weed, 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 is an ‘emotional wallop [that] nails the restless ennui of adolescence’ (People), revealing how the past haunts the present and the way our ghosts are always with us, even when we think we’ve left them behind.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Tom Perrotta rouses the sleeping dogs of 1970s suburbia with tender complexity. Ghost Town is a time capsule dug up behind the old high school - an artifact of a family navigating loss in a nation at the crossroads." - Tayari Jones
"I love the sense of constant presence and interplay of time/timelessness in Tom Perrotta's gorgeous new novel. Ghost Town is a wise, funny, bittersweet testament to the fact that ghosts live in us and with us, always." - Jayne Anne Phillips
"Ghost Town is a glorious piece of Americana (not to mention New Jerseyana), a wonderful snapshot of a time and place and one of the best renditions of childhood in recent memory. Tom Perrotta just keeps getting better." - Gary Shteyngart
"Ghost Town [is] moving, evocative, wise and funny." - Curtis Sittenfeld
"To readers who have not yet had the pleasure of reading Tom Perrotta's books, Ghost Town is a beautiful introduction. If Perrotta has written grief before, though, as in The Leftovers, he has never written it like this - as pure and clean as a wish, or a prayer. I wept, because I understood. If you have lost someone you love, you will, too." - Emma Straub
"Ghost Town is a brilliant, evocative novel, at once a page-turning ghost story, and a deeply moving exploration of grief. Tom Perrotta's characters are people you know instantly, and the town he's created feels like the place you grew up. I couldn't put it down and after finishing it, I couldn't escape the haunting nostalgia of my own memories." - Jess Walter
"I love the sense of constant presence and interplay of time/timelessness in Tom Perrotta's gorgeous new novel. Ghost Town is a wise, funny, bittersweet testament to the fact that ghosts live in us and with us, always." - Jayne Anne Phillips
"Ghost Town is a glorious piece of Americana (not to mention New Jerseyana), a wonderful snapshot of a time and place and one of the best renditions of childhood in recent memory. Tom Perrotta just keeps getting better." - Gary Shteyngart
"Ghost Town [is] moving, evocative, wise and funny." - Curtis Sittenfeld
"To readers who have not yet had the pleasure of reading Tom Perrotta's books, Ghost Town is a beautiful introduction. If Perrotta has written grief before, though, as in The Leftovers, he has never written it like this - as pure and clean as a wish, or a prayer. I wept, because I understood. If you have lost someone you love, you will, too." - Emma Straub
"Ghost Town is a brilliant, evocative novel, at once a page-turning ghost story, and a deeply moving exploration of grief. Tom Perrotta's characters are people you know instantly, and the town he's created feels like the place you grew up. I couldn't put it down and after finishing it, I couldn't escape the haunting nostalgia of my own memories." - Jess Walter
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