Book Review: Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta

Mrs. Fletcher is divorced and drops her only son of at college. She feels a bit lost: what’s next for her? She’s only 46, and she is ready to start all over again. She becomes interested in sex, and watches porn every night. Before she knows it, she’s kissing a female co-worker and has a teenage stalker, a boy who can only think of her.

Meanwhile, her son Brendan feels out of place at college. He tries his best, and parties hard, but he finds it difficult to fit in.

Both mother and son need to find a new path in life that suits them and that is not influenced by what they should do according to others.

The story is told mainly from Eve Fletcher’s viewpoint and from her son, Brendan. Brendan is portrayed very much as a typical student (maybe slightly cliché at times), with his own vocabulary and his focus on things that especially interest him (roommate, drink, girls, food – not his mother, much!). Eve is a decent adult with quirky interests (mainly to do with sex) and she finds it hard at times to include her new interests in her rather boring life.

The story is very engaging and I was always curious to know what would happen next. Eve’s stalker, Julian, has a plan that the sexually awoken Eve finds interesting, but the decent housewife in her finds impossible to consider.

A fun read that is entertaining until the very end. 5 stars

Publisher’s blurb:

From one of the most popular and bestselling authors of our time, a penetrating and hilarious new novel about sex, love, and identity on the frontlines of America’s culture wars.

Eve Fletcher is trying to figure out what comes next. A forty-six-year-old divorcee whose beloved only child has just left for college, Eve is struggling to adjust to her empty nest when one night her phone lights up with a text message. Sent from an anonymous number, the mysterious sender tells Eve, “U R my MILF!” Over the months that follow, that message comes to obsess Eve. While leading her all-too-placid life—serving as Executive Director of the local senior center by day and taking a community college course on Gender and Society at night—Eve can’t curtail her own interest in a porn website called MILFateria.com, which features the erotic exploits of ordinary, middle-aged women like herself. Before long, Eve’s online fixations begin to spill over into real life, revealing new romantic possibilities that threaten to upend her quiet suburban existence.

Meanwhile, miles away at the state college, Eve’s son Brendan—a jock and aspiring frat boy—discovers that his new campus isn’t nearly as welcoming to his hard-partying lifestyle as he had imagined. Only a few weeks into his freshman year, Brendan is floundering in a college environment that challenges his white-dude privilege and shames him for his outmoded, chauvinistic ideas of sex. As the New England autumn turns cold, both mother and son find themselves enmeshed in morally fraught situations that come to a head on one fateful November night.

Sharp, witty, and provocative, Mrs. Fletcher is a timeless examination of sexuality, identity, parenthood, and the big clarifying mistakes people can make when they’re no longer sure of who they are or where they belong.