Perrotta, Tom
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1961- ) US screenwriter and author, most of whose fiction – like Election (1998), Little Children (2004) and The Abstinence Teacher (2007) – is nonfantastic. He is of sf interest for The Leftovers (2011), for which he also collaborated on the screenplay for the Television series The Leftovers (2014-2017). The basic tale is Equipoisal between supernatural fiction [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] and sf in its portrayal of a very-Near Future world after the mysterious "Sudden Departure", the moment in which 2% of the world's population instantly disappears. Previous uses of this particular device from the SF Megatext like Philip Wylie's The Disappearance (1956), and contemporary recyclings like the climactic Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbusters Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019) both directed by Anthony Russo, have focused expectedly on the universal implications of an event generally conceived as a cosmic gesture, perhaps at the "hands" of a god. The Leftovers, book and film, focus on the domestic consequences of a fait accompli that resembles a mini-Rapture and which is never argued to an sf resolution. [JC]
Thomas R Perrotta
born Newark, New Jersey: 13 August 1961
works
- The Leftovers (New York: St Martin's Press, 2011) [hb/Rob Grom]
links
- Tom Perrotta
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy: Supernatural Fiction
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