Ghost Town

by Tom Perrotta

From 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), comes 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.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Coming Of Age, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Grief, Family

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 28, 2026

About the author

Tom Perrotta is the bestselling author of nine 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 work has been translated into a multitude of languages. Perrotta grew up in New Jersey and lives outside of Boston.

Reviews

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the 9th book of Tom Perrotta's that I've read. It is safe to say that I consider myself a fan of his, especially since I have been consistently reading his work for a quarter of a century now.

I was very excited to be able to get my hands on this novel, especially since it is September of 2025 and the book doesn't even come out for another eight months! I've never been granted access to an ARC before, so this was a fun experience for me.

I wish I had liked this book more, however. Tonally and content wise, this novel seems to have a lot in common with Perrotta's first ever publication, his linked short story collection "Bad Haircut" set in 1970s suburban New Jersey. "Ghost Town" is also set in the same decade, specifically the summer of 1974, in the fictional Creamwood, NJ. It centers Jimmy, a 13 year old who just finished middle school, as he finds his footing in the immediate aftermath of having lost his mother. Aimless, his father and sister absorbed by their own grief and coping on their own, Jimmy tries to make sense of his loss while navigating his own adolescence, heartbreak, new friendships, while looking for his mother's guidance, not wanting to lose sight of or forget her.

While there are elements of Perrotta's greatest strengths in this novel, and hints of the things that have made me love his works in the past, I couldn't help but feel like something was amiss, that the novel was underbaked, and the elements present just didn't come together in a satisfying way. We have hints of a ghost story that remains on the margins of the narrative, as though Perrotta doesn't quite know how to work it all in. We have a story that flirts with wanting to tackle race and segregation but with a timidity that even results in the novel going out of its way to censor itself as though Perrotta feels fully aware that he is not the best candidate to deal with these thematics, and yet a skeleton of the story remains imprinted on the final draft. And we have a coming of age novel with a passive protagonist who is coasting through his experiences, whose memory and impressions are unreliable and frustratingly superficial.

It's a bit of a step back for a writer who has consistently been able to imagine a dark underbelly to pristine suburban living, like a modern day Richard Yates, who has tackled fascinating stories in the past, but who seems to be in a bit of a rut, creatively speaking. It's still a very readable novel that I finished quite quickly, and I don't think it was a waste of time. I just feel like I read a very early draft of something nascent, and not the final version that is about to be published. It's a weird little tale and it doesn't really work, but could have, with a few more passes and a little more courage to lean into the uncomfortable instead of going out of its way to avoid doing so.

[Seawitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished a book with a spiritualist theme so imagine my surprise to pick up another story where someone is trying to contact the spirits of deceased loved ones. It’s interesting how book themes sometimes come in groups. In this one the ouija board makes a cameo with unexpected results.

I had a soft spot for this whole story as it’s set in the 1970s in New Jersey. I grew up there and was about the same age as the protagonist. Seaside, the Garden State Arts Center, Drew University, Rutgers (my Alma Mater) driving past Rahway Prison, Lavallette!!, Menlo Park Mall where I shopped for clothes with my mother at Bambergers… these were the places that were part of my own story. Including the ouija board which was quite popular at sleepovers in those days.

Tom Perrotta must be a Jersey Boy to get all that so right. He also gives a very accurate portrayal of race and the divides at that time.

It’s hard to imagine a boy experiencing what this one did and then finding his way to Princeton and beyond, but if I think about attachment theory he had very secure roots in his loving family. So, maybe?

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

My first 5🌟 read for 2026.

I loved Tom Perrotta's Ghost Town. As a reader, I loved how Perrotta blended the unusual combination and nostalga and the supernatural.
I've read homecoming stories that lead back to the hero's adolescence so I thought I correctly predicted certain plot points, but I was dead wrong especially at the story's end. I'm a certified Jersey boy so the references to places such as Menlo Park Mall, spots such as Wildwood, NJ, and The Star Ledger newspaper brought back my own memories growing up in Jersey. I'm thrilled that Tom Perrotta has returned after a decade that solidfies himself as a standout among the current crop authors from the Garden State.

[Kirsten · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thank you so much NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC in exchange for a review.
I’ll start with what I liked: I finished this book very fast, it read smoothly and kept me engaged.
What I didn’t like: while I was engaged, I kept thinking something more was going to happen and felt a little let down. The characters weren’t all that great. I did have empathy for Jimmy but other than that, no real development that I was invested in. The biggest reason I gave this book the rating I did, I could not do the forced modern day politics thrown in, it was ridiculous, along with a few other elements that turned me off. Overall, this book didn’t give me a positive reaction upon finishing it.

[Janereads10 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect coming into this book, but it kept me glued.

Jimmy's voice hooked me—vulnerable and innocent. The story followed his eighth-grade summer in 1970s suburban New Jersey, a summer rife with tragedy that haunted him into the present. Narrated by an older Jimmy looking back, the way he processed his grief felt genuine to his age.

The 70s backdrop felt true to the era. Jimmy's journey—from troubling friendships with a local burnout and an eccentric girl entranced by her Ouija board to facing what happened—felt honest throughout.

The ending felt freeing. Going back home and confronting what happened in the past allowed Jimmy to finally face his grief, fears, and suspicions.

Perrotta captures grief through a young voice with devastating authenticity.

Thanks to Scribner for the advance copy.

[Scott Baxter]

I will just say up front that I was disappointed with this book. I enjoyed Perrotta’s Mrs Fletcher — although I am deeply disappointed that the people at Warner Discovery pulled the miniseries from the Max streaming service before I had a chance to watch it — I enjoyed Perrotta’s story anthology Nine Inches, and the HBO series The Leftovers based on Perrotta’s novel was a discussion worthy show. But I kept waiting for a reason why this book needs to exist as I read and grew increasingly irritated as I failed to find one.

The story is narrated by Jimmy, a man in his fifties, remembering one summer in the 1970s when he was a young teenager in the suburbs of Northern New Jersey. The story is about the transition from childhood to becoming an adult. As the narrator says:

“When you’re thirteen, you don’t know what to think or who to believe. You’re just beginning to realize that adults aren’t as smart as you thought they were, and a lot of things that had been presented to you as facts your entire life are really just opinions or wishes or half-baked theories, like the idea that dead people go to heaven” (location 894).

The basic plot goes something like the following. Jimmy’s mother has recently died and, with the help of his friends — his father and sister are hardly ever at home — he discovers marijuana and the ouija board.

Honestly, I found neither a compelling story nor much humor in this book.

At least in my opinion, it would be better to read one of Perrotta’s other books like The Leftovers, Mrs. Fletcher, or Election. Alternatively, one could find a copy of Stephen King’s collection Different Seasons and read “The Body” or watch the movie version called Stand By Me. That is a coming of age tale with a compelling plot and humor.

Thanks to the publisher for providing a free copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Scheduled for publication in the US 28 April 2026

epub. 288 pgs. 19 September 2025

[Patrick Casebeer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Received this as an ARC and was happy to be able to read it. The story, while it did have a good main character, just lacked the draw to make me really enjoy it.

It’s a good enough story, but felt undeveloped and none of the character had the depth I wanted.

The story also veered into an uncomfortable area of inappropriate relationships with minors and although it never went there it just felt odd and weird.

I’ve not read the author’s works before and I’d love to try another book to see how his other works are, but as for this one, it wasn’t the best.

[Katherine Fletcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

He has the lightest touch even when telling the most heartbreaking story. This was such a good one

[Stuart Rosen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book feels to me like a departure for Tom Perrotta, all of whose books I've read and enjoyed. Unlike most of his books which feel very contemporary, this is a memory piece of a young teenager's summer in suburban New Jersey. While enormously consequential things happen to him, the book is more focused on the aimlessness of that time - the dirtbag he befriends, the awkward sexual fumbling, the awareness of unvarnished racism in his town, the sudden unspoken loss of friends and the detachment he feels from everyone around him.

It's a precise, sad book, but (as always) Perrotta's eye is true. He's never been enamored with suburbia, though it's the setting for virtually all his books, and this book may not change that, but there's a glimmering of affection for a time that's long gone, with a gratefulness that it's gone as well.

Don't read this for a barreling plot; there is none. But if you want to sink into a sad, wistful, elegiac and always emotionally true novel, grab onto this book.

Many thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for the advance reviewer's copy.

[Gary Branson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Addictive reading experience. Did not want to put it down. Highly recommended.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC of Ghost Town from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.
Tom Perrotta is always a good choice, and this one was a quick, enjoyable read. A coming of age story, Jimmy is spending his summer vacation trying to figure out his life after losing his mother to cancer earlier that year. He ends up making bad choices, hanging out with some sketchy characters, as well as a girl with a Ouija board who wants to help him talk to his mom. The grown-up Jimmy, who is a successful author, narrates the story. There was one chapter in the middle of the story when grown-up Jimmy interjects something about his adult self, which, for me, interrupted the flow of the narrative. But that is my only complaint. The author captures growing up in the 1970s perfectly, and despite the heavy topic, I found this one to be an enjoyable read.

[Anna Meaney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ghost Town follows writer Jay Perry after he is invited to come back to his hometown to celebrate a mural in honor of his father. Most of the narrative takes place in 1970s New Jersey as Jay (Jimmy at the time) reminisces on the summer his mother died.

This is definitely a book driven by atmosphere. Jimmy goes for late night drives with an older boy, volunteers at a summer camp, falls in love with the smartest girl in town, and navigates life without his mother.

I loved The Leftovers but haven’t read anything else by Tom Perrotta. He has an easy, readable style. The writing reminded me a little bit of a combination of Paul Murray and Kevin Wilson. This book honestly could have been classified as a YA novel, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Jimmy was an easy character to root for, and I felt like his internal struggle to understand his place in his neighborhood was convincing. A lot of this book is about grief, but it’s also about racism. The parts about grief I found really moving, but I was less convinced by the racism aspects.

A melancholy covers the whole narrative as Jimmy is constantly forced to evaluate his relationships in the wake of his loss. At the same time, there are moments that are genuinely funny and every side character gets their moment to shine. I did feel like the women in the book were significantly less developed.

I gave 3 stars because I didn’t feel like the sections taking place in the present justified themselves. This was such a short book, and I could have done either with way more taking place in the present or nothing at all. I also wished that there had been a little more about ghosts. I felt like what was there tied into the overall narrative but there was so little of it (just the Ouija board once and the feeling of being watched in the car) and it could have been amped up. I also felt like the book was a 4 star read until the last chapter where the plot really goes off the rails in a way I found so irritating.

[Elida Liederbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC and book out April 26. Tom Perrotta gives us Jimmy a young boy losing his mom to cancer and based on the grief of his father,who throws himself at work, Jimmy is alone to deal with emotions alone. But this story is Jimmy as an adult giving us both the adult and child’s point of views of what occurred in Creamwood that summer that changes a boy forever. That saying “you can never go back”, well sometimes you stuck in what occurred that you’ve never left. Ghost Town is a perfect title for a young boy alone dealing with to many emotions. Enjoyed!

[Cass · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75✨✨✨

Ghost Town by Tom Perrotta is a quiet, reflective story about grief and growing up too quickly after the loss of a loved one.

The novel follows a boy trying to make sense of life after a tragic event, while also attempting to still be a “normal” teenager. What I found especially moving was how honestly it portrays grief at a young age. How loss forces maturity onto someone before they’re ready, to the point where they no longer relate to the interests or concerns of other kids their age. The story captures that strange in-between feeling of wanting to hold onto childhood while also being painfully aware that things will never fully feel the same again.

Rather than being overwhelmingly emotional, the sadness in this book feels quieter and more casual, which somehow makes it feel even more real. The memories shared can seem random at times, but that actually mirrors how memory works. How years later, it’s often the smallest and strangest moments that stay with you the most clearly. It reads like someone honestly trying to piece together a heartbreaking summer, from the death of a loved one through another tragedy by the end of it all.

The short chapters make it incredibly easy to move through, and the structure almost feels like a memoir made up of small memories and moments that slowly connect into one larger emotional picture. Overall, it’s a simple but thoughtful novel that left me reflecting long after I finished it.

[Jason Conrad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Go girl, give us nothing! This was such a disappointment. The blurb sounded so good, and now that I’ve finished the book, I feel lied to. It didn’t deliver on the ghost portion of the story, which maybe took up all of 10-15 pages of the whole book. The ending was so DUMB.

We get some cursory nods to topics that deserve far more attention than they’re given. You know, like racial politics of the 70’s.

The main character is just so utterly forgettable. I felt no connection to him or his bland personality. His homecoming was anticlimactic and meaningless.

Speaking of characters, none of them were particularly likeable — and in the grand scheme, none of them brought much to the story. A shitty “best friend.” A shitty sister. Shitty supporting characters so devoid of any kind of defining traits that I’ve already forgotten some of their names.

Also, can we just take a moment to point out that Olivia was flat-out kissing and groping a 13-year-old without his consent?

Overall, it felt rushed and unfinished, like I was reading a first draft.

[Toni Laliberte · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - I think this book would be perfect for a young guy. It's not that I didn't like it, it's just not my type of book. It's about a thirteen year old boy, in a small town in New Jersey, during the summer after eighth grade, and is also briefly about him as an adult forty years later when he returns to his hometown for the first time since that fateful summer. There were a few things that bothered me in the book and I think that turned me off a bit. Overall, it is a tale of nostalgia and is about Jimmy and his family and childhood, and the ghosts that haunted him then and the ones that still do. (I received this free copy from a giveaway here on Goodreads)

[Mary Lins · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Ghost” by Tom Perrotta is going on my 2026 Top Ten list for sure! Propulsive, suspenseful, gripping, and full of 1970s nostalgia.

Jimmy Perrini, now a moderately successful writer, is looking back on the summer of 1974 when he was 14 years old and had just lost his mother. In his grief, his father all but ignores Jimmy and his older sister, leaving Jimmy on his own, where he makes several fateful friendships that profoundly change the course of several lives, including his own.

This coming-of-age novel asks how past trauma lives on, and what it takes to confront it.

[Scott Lovelace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was classic Perrotta. A look back to the 1970’s through the eyes of author Jimmy Perrin. Loss, grief, friendship, acceptance are just a few of the ideas explored. Reeling from the death of his mother, Jimmy befriends two people who couldn’t be more different, one a stoner, one a girl from the local summer camp. The majority of the story takes place over the summer of the friendship. This was an exceptionally engaging story, very grounded.

[Alex Littler · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up. I always love Tom Perrotta’s books. This is not my favorite of his (probably middle of the pack compared to his others), but I still really liked it. Went super fast, and even though there wasn’t necessarily a ton of thrilling plot, I was still invested in the characters and had a good time reading this.

[Matthew Harby Conforti · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/ Sharp character portrait told mostly in flashback to the narrator's youth. Dripping in 1970s nostalgia and steeped in the typical themes of that time period. I enjoyed it and thought it was a bit more subdued for Perrotta, definitely interior as a whole. The interiority of Jimmy felt very true and genuine and I liked the adult portions, may have even wanted some more of them.

[Linnea · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 ⭐️

[Sandra Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy read, my first e-book. A coming of age story from a man looking back on his teenage years I’m NJ in the 1970s. Reading of the angst that was so familiar coupled with the tragedies in his life made this an enjoyable read.

[thewanderingjew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ghost town: A Novel-Tom Perrotta, author; Robert Petkoff, narrator
When the book opens, author Jay Perry (alias Jimmy Perrini), is invited to his old hometown, the working-class community of Creamwood, New Jersey, to participate in the dedication of a building in his father’s name and to give a talk at the library on his latest book, Ghost Town. He had not been home in half a century, and times had really changed. It begins in the Vietnam era and ends in the post-Covid era.
When Jimmy was thirteen, he came home from his championship Little League Game to tragedy. His mother, who had been ill, had just died. His life, once normal and happy, suddenly changed dramatically. His father, grieving, paid little attention to him. His sister, at seventeen, was busy most of the time. She was about to graduate from High School, and he was graduating from the 8th grade. At this same time, his supposed girlfriend, Janie Randowski, and his best friend, Greg Cellucci, had betrayed him. The two of them were becoming an item, shutting him out.
Jimmy was adrift when Eddie Fitzpatrick, three years ahead of him in school, with a car and a driver’s license, offered Jimmy a ride in his Vega. Jimmy knew Eddie was wild and did not have a great reputation, but he was lost and lonely without his mom who had been his rudder. The day he got into Eddie’s car, however, his life changed. Eddie encouraged him to disobey rules and introduced him to Marijuana. Then he introduced him to Leonard, a penny-ante drug dealer who worked at McDonalds. He was even rougher around the edges. Leonard’s boss, Shirley, supplied him with weed to sell. He simply dumped it into the bag with the French Fries. What, if any, consequences would Jimmy face because of this "friendship"? At this same troubled time, he also met a classmate of his sister's. Olivia Riley was the valedictorian of Denise's graduating class. She understood his grief because she had also suffered a loss. She used a Ouija Board to try and make contact with her own dead father. She offered to help Jimmy try to reach Bette Perrini, his mother. She also began to subtly seduce him. Jimmy seemed very naïve. He had no one he trusted to turn to, to ask questions, now that his mother was gone. When he confided in Eddie, situations tended to escalate and get out of hand.
His next-door neighbor, Nilda, liked to sun herself in the yard. Jimmy discovered this and the workings of his body at pretty much the same time as he spied on her. Her husband, his cousin Wayne Perrini, was a bad influence. He, like Leonard was a pothead, although he didn't deal in drugs, he was happy to share his weed. When Hector Lopez, Nilda’s cousin came to live with Wayne and Nilda, Jimmy learns about racism. Hector is black. Mr. Kazmierski, Jimmy’s homeroom teacher had offered him a shoulder to lean on, but Jimmy discovered that he, like other people in the town, were unfamiliar with black people and were not very welcoming. 
Jimmy seems very innocent and unaware of many things. Fifty years ago, there was no internet, WIFI, or social media. The times were very different without cell phones as well. No one was busy being an amateur investigator, photographer, gossip, or busybody, filming others and minding other people’s business whenever they witnessed any event they thought was newsworthy. Many conflicts remained unknown and/or unpunished because there was no proof. In general, people did not interfere in other people’s business, unless it was an exceptional circumstance. Sometimes, behavior was ignored, or even covered up, because it was easy to do so. When Ghost Town began, the times were far more innocent, and communities were far more isolated. Local life was simpler, generally based around the home, work, school, and places of worship. Creamwood was a community that lacked diversity and had many inhabitants that did not welcome the stranger. When Jay (Jimmy) returned, was the town very different? Did he meet old friends? Did he fit in? Were there any surprises?
The book takes the reader through Eddie’s thirteenth year of life and then, without too much in between, pretty much skips to his life as a happily married man with two grown children. The 1970’s seemed to be a more innocent time. Often, poor behavior had no consequences. There were no witnesses. There was no way to record events like today. I found that the colorful characters seemed to get away with a lot more than they would today because, today, everyone is watching. There were few conspiracy theories, then. Facts were accepted at face value. Did you agree with the conclusion about the fatal fire? Would it have been as easily explained today?
I would have liked to have some of the events and characters explored more fully. It often felt like I was reading anecdotal stories that unexpectedly continued without filling in the blanks. It was a coming-of-age story about Jimmy. We explored his grief and his growth as he matured, but too briefly dealing with any consequences. I felt that there was a hole of several decades that left me wanting more from this story. 
 

[Trevin Sandlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review at:
https://overentertained.wordpress.com...

His newest novel, Ghost Town, is a fantastic example of how some have overlooked him as “just a satirist” in the past. This is a novel told in hindsight and right from the beginning, you are left to wonder…how much of this is true or is it just remembered? How much do we hide away to create the version of ourselves we can live with?

“At least that was how he remembered it, though he also knew how slippery and unreliable memory could be, how it was always partly a work of fiction, a product of imagination and denial and wishful thinking, and often no better than an outright lie, even when you believed yourself to be telling nothing but the truth.”

We’re being set up here. Being told that this is remembered history. And you should always take that with a grain of salt.

Ostensibly, the novel is the story of a summer in a teenage boy’s life in the mid 1970s. His mother dies, leaving him with just his absentee father and his sister. He falls in with two older teenagers: a burnout guy with a fast car and a LOT of weed…and a smart and somewhat quirky girl with a Ouija board. Yeah…a Ouija board. This is a novel about ghosts. Both real and imagined – but maybe all “real” ghosts are imagined ones to begin with. But this is also a novel about race. About sex. About suburban New Jersey in the 1970s. About what America was like after Vietnam – the divisions that existed. And the combination of all that.

The funny thing is – this book shouldn’t have worked for me. I’m generally uninterested in “coming of age” stories for a whole host of reasons (I think once you get a little older, that sort of thing just doesn’t hit as well as it once did), but something about this novel caught me. I can remember how I was at the age Jimmy is in this novel. How that time sits in the back of my mind – an age that shaped me so very much and yet…an age I can only vaguely remember. Like Jimmy…I’ve tried my best to put that all behind me.

“Maybe all that stuff catches up to you in the end, the demons you think you’ve outrun, the bad memories you locked awy in a metal box, and then you hid the box in a dark corner of the basement under a heap of dirty blankets, and then you moved far away and did your best to pretend you were someone else. But that box is always right there, right where you left it.”

This is an exceptional novel. But it isn’t for everyone. It isn’t funny or even amusing. It is filled with a sometimes overwhelming sense of lost time and melancholia – so much so that I had to periodically set it aside and read something lighter just to avoid falling into a funk myself. As the novel moves towards it’s climax, there’s a sense of impending doom – like seeing the car crash coming and being able to do nothing to prevent it. And when it comes…it just hits you square on. And you’re left empty…hollow. And like Jimmy…you’re wondering what was true and what wasn’t true.

Like Jimmy, I can picture the 13 year old version of me. I want to talk to him. To tell him to make better choices. But instead…like Jimmy…that box is still always right where I left it. There’s a line in my favorite Counting Crows song, “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby’:

If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts
You can never escape, you can only move south down the coast

I thought of this over and over while reading this book. The ghosts in it are memories. And we’re all haunted. It gets back to the line I’ve quoted before…that I don’t believe in ghosts, but hauntings happen every day. We are all running from the ghosts that are our memories. And even if we run away “down the coast,” they’re still there. Forever.

Five stars. Highly highly recommended. Fair warning…the marketing calls it humorous. It really isn’t. But again…that’s the Tom Perrotta marketing, which isn’t the author.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for a chance to read an advance review copy. All opinions are my own and were not compensated. Ghost Town is out on April 28th and you can preorder it in all the usual places.

[Richard · Rating 1 out of 5]

DISJOINTED!

I received this book free from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Written by Tom Perrotta and published by Scribner - an Imprint of Simon & Schuster in 2025/2026, this is a very chopped up and difficult to read novel that you might think is about ghosts. If so, you would be mistaken. It is much more a male “coming of age” story that is a masquerading as a ghost story. The novel is divided into two primary narrations: the present time for the protagonist, James (Jay) Perrini, in his adult life, along with flashbacks to anecdotes of when he was a thirteen-year-old boy. Those flashbacks are indicated and separated using named groups of numbered chapters that I will call “Books,” that are then divided into “Chapters” that are usually very short and might be as few as two and often no more than five or six pages long. In fact, the “flashbacks” make up the bulk of the novel. This practice makes the book seem disjointed and choppy.

Additionally, when presenting a flashback, instead of using the traditional English method of showing speech by enclosure in double quotation marks, the author chose to use italics, instead. When he is describing the present (rather than a flashback) in the story, he reverts to using traditional double quotation marks. This practice sometimes makes it difficult to determine exactly who is speaking. These departures from the norm make the story very difficult to read, in my view. Furthermore, the author has chosen to number the very short chapters of flashback, but to neither name nor number the chapters that describe the present-time adult James Perrini. In fact, the book is really all about the coming of age of protagonist Jimmy and his first sexual experiences. Despite this, I did plow ahead and continued reading, hoping to finish the story before falling asleep. That was a mistake! 😊

James (Jimmy) Perrini apparently grows up in the suburbs of New Jersey. He has an older sister named Denise. Unfortunately, his mother passes away when Jimmy is still a child. Ever since that time, Jimmy sees flashbacks of his mother at random times, especially when he is in a crowd. As an adult with a wife named Molly and two grown children, James has become a successful author and screenwriter. He also produces children’s TV shows. As the child Jimmy, he had a friend who drove a Vega, and who supplied him with a constant ration of Marijuana, which was smoked by both of them regularly.

As I have read further into the novel, I have concluded that these are not “flashbacks” at all. They are the bulk of the story. No ghosts make an appearance until about ¾ of the way through the story, which really drags. The segments describing the present time are “flash forwards,” as they are dwarfed by the descriptions of Jimmy’s childhood. In fact, the story even contains a murder, which goes unreported and unpunished. I do not like this style of writing, and I found the first half of the book to be extremely slow-paced and boring. I will not recommend this book to other readers, and I award only one of the available five stars. Feel free to skip this one.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

In celebrated author Tom Perrotta’s 11th book, a literary author who found success as a children’s author and screenwriter, looks back at his formative summer of 1974. Jimmy Perrini grew up in “a normal family” with his parents and his older sister, Denise, in fictional Creamwood, New Jersey, an ugly industrial town where the houses were alike and “it was rare to meet an adult with a college degree, or a father who hadn’t served in the military.” Almost everyone Jimmy knew was Catholic, most were Italian American, and they were all white.

Jimmy was thirteen when his mother died of lung cancer at forty-one. With his parents’ encouragement “to be a normal kid, to keep on living his life,” he had been playing baseball when his cousin Wayne, who had been a stranger to Jimmy until he and his Black wife, Nilda, had moved into the house next door, showed up at Jimmy’s Little League game to collect him. Wayne was the son of Jimmy’s father’s estranged older brother, and Wayne had been raised in luxury and attended a “snooty prep school,” but he had “rebelled,” growing his hair long, protesting the war (he managed to get himself declared 4-F on account of his flat feet), and smoking pot.

Stepping outside of the funeral home at the wake, a Chevy Vega pulled up driven by Eddie Fitzpatrick, a burnout older boy, and Jimmy jumped in, feeling that his mother had sent Eddie to rescue him from the sadness. Carelessly abandoned by his grief-stricken father (“the one who couldn’t wait to get out of the house and away from his kids, away from the memories he didn’t know how to live with”) and his self-centered sister at a time when he needed them the most, Jimmy spent the summer cruising in Eddie’s Vega at night, listening to “Ruby Tuesday,” “Sugar, Sugar,” and “Moondance,” smoking pot, and staying out long past his curfew. Sometimes Eddie and Jimmy were accompanied by the menacing racist Leonard. Jimmy’s doubts about Eddie and Leonard escalated when they threatened Jimmy’s former best friend, who had stolen his “girlfriend” right after his mom died. During the day, Jimmy assisted the counselors at the Creamwood Recreation Center. He was befriended there by Olivia Jean Riley, the high school valedictorian, who was six inches taller than Jimmy and two years older, and who introduced him to the Ouija board as a means to connect with his mother.

Perrotta artfully captures the summer of 1974 with the political tensions of the Viet Nam War and the anxiety of a grieving boy who finds himself way in over his head. Although the novel is sad and melancholy, Perrotta lightens the mood with more typical teen concerns, such as Jimmy’s relief when Father Paul, who had offered to take him to the beach, shows up in a T-shirt and shorts as Jimmy had “been dreading the prospect of walking onto the beach alongside a priest dressed in black, as if he were some kind of pathetic orphan or charity case.” Perrotta, who is known for edgy satires like Election (1998) and Mrs. Fletcher (2017), creates a different mood here of melancholy, loss, and regret. Thank you Scribner and Net Galley for an advance copy of this very moving story of a middle-aged man reflecting on a sad, bewildering, and aimless childhood.

[LLJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to #NetGalley and #Scribner for the opportunity to read and review #GHOST TOWN by Tom Perrotta (a deeply admired writer in my world for decades). His work never fails to reach me in relatable and uplifting ways, while simultaneously breaking my heart. Readers are in for a treat when this one hits the shelves on 4 28 2026 and I highly recommend preordering now.

Tom Perrotta is a writer I would read, plot unseen, without thinking twice. He writes with tremendous heart, creating memorable characters who often undergo daunting and life-changing circumstances over the course of the novel. This "flashback" coming-of-age tale of Jimmy Perrini is no exception. There was so much for me to relate to when reading this one. As with many of Tom Perrotta's books, it was based in central New Jersey (an area I'm very familiar with) and evoked so much nostalgia from my own "growing up" years in suburban New Jersey.

Though Jimmy's town of Creamwood was a construct it was within the Union County lines and he received his news from the Star Ledger. There were other familiar landmarks such as Menlo Park Mall, Drew College, and more -- all combined to conjure memories of growing up in that geographic area (sights, smells, and FEELINGS). Things like summer camp, the social and racial dichotomies, clothing, the pain of friendships and belonging -- all pre=cell phone and gaming -- put a spotlight on the importance and impact of family.

Jimmy goes through an awful lot in the years upon which he flashes back (early adolescence -- a uniquely difficult time in itself) and these things shape his decision to move far away and even change his name (as the writer he later becomes). It's as if he wants to keep that past boxed up in the back of a closet (because of the pain it evokes along with a self-perceived shame he seems to hold onto inherent in all of it).

As usual, no spoilers from me. Jimmy, narrating within more modern times as author Jay Perry, recalls his pivotal eighth grade year and beyond, He is looking back on that time with a feeling of disconnect and it is obvious he has tried to distance himself from what he feels as a time period best forgotten. He is narrating decades into the future as a successful writer of niche young adult fiction that was made into a successful series and has established an entirely different life and identity with his wife Molly on the west coast. It's both a coming of age and a coming to terms masterpiece.

Tom Perrotta is such a rock star in my reading life -- and he has once again composed a hit you do not want to miss.

[Larry H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started thinking about this and can’t believe it. I’ve been reading Tom Perrotta’s books since 1994! (And no, I’m not interested in knowing how young you were in 1994, or hearing you weren’t born yet, lol.) Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for the complimentary advance copy of his latest!

When Jimmy, a middle-aged writer and television producer, gets a letter from the mayor of his New Jersey hometown, he’s thrown for a loop. Apparently they’re naming the new municipal complex in memory of his father, and they’d love to have him attend. Jimmy hasn’t been back home since 1974 when he was 13, and he’s not sure he wants to return.

“Maybe all that stuff catches up to you in the end, the demons you think you’ve outrun, the bad memories you locked away in a metal box, and then you hid the box in a dark corner of the basement under a heap of dirty blankets, and then you moved far away and did your best to pretend you were someone else. But that box is always right there, right where you left it.”

Thinking about the invitation takes him back to 1974, the year that everything changed. His mother died of lung cancer, his hippie cousin and his wife moved in next door, and he was just trying to make sense of growing up and really see the world around him.

For the most part, the plot is composed of Jimmy’s reminiscences about losing his mother, befriending a local dirtbag, having a crush on a girl, feeling betrayed by his best friend, and watching everything fall apart. There’s also his desire to hold onto his mother’s memory, and perhaps see and feel her presence.

As always, Perrotta’s observations of New Jersey suburban life are dead-on. But for me, unfortunately, the rest of the book never felt complete. There’s some brief discussion of racial tensions—but not enough for Perrotta to give voice to them—and a weird, unfinished ghost story plot thread. Beyond that, nothing really was that interesting, not even Jimmy himself.

The book will publish 4/28.

Check out my best reads of 2025 at https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-best-books-i-read-in-2025.html .

See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com.

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[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before beginning this review, I scanned some other reviews, because I was torn as to how to approach mine. I found it interesting that many of the reviews were based on what this book wasn't or how this book compared to other Perrotta novels. That made me conclude to give a review based on my gut response.

The biggest driving force in this novel is the death of the protagonist's mother when he was 15 or 16 years old. All of my family has passed (not when I was young), so I am usually intrigued by how fiction approaches deaths in a family. And I'm also about the age of the narrator / protagonist - who is looking back on his life. As I've gotten older, I, too, have looked back and tried to remember.

I found the young and the old narrator to be realistic - I like that in my protagonists. He thinks and talks and behaves like I may now or may have behaved. So I can relate. Once I find a protagonist I can relate to, I turn to the story / plot. This is a book of interesting things that happen to a young boy after his mother dies. His tales are entertaining in and of themselves. But Perrotta also weaves 1974 realities in. I found them subtle enough to not take me out of the story. At the same time, they painted a milieu that became critical to the story. The town and its denizens were a character all to themselves. The portrayal of racism isn't heavy-handed, but it was (and still is) omnipresent in the real world. So I didn't react to this book as being about race; I read this as a story about a young man who lost his mother, who was himself impacted by the effects of racism.

For those put off by racism in a book about small town life in 1974, here's my own short tale: In the 70s we lived in a small town in the Midwest. My Dad (who worked for the department of agriculture) was told his new employee had been assigned and could he get things ready for his arrival (he would be transferring from out of state). My Dad tried and tried to find housing for this gentleman and his family, to no avail. Oh, there was housing available. But this person was African American. My Dad didn't figure out the housing issue until one day he was at the local diner with co-workers. He overheard someone at a nearby table say "There's no way that boy is coming to my town." My Dad asked his co-workers who that guy was . . . it was the mayor. The employee ended up getting a transfer to a town that wasn't a cesspool of bigotry and ended up having a successful career.

[Timothy Patrick Boyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ghosts and Orphans.
Orphans and Ghosts.
The ways we're abandoned and never left alone.

It's been ages since I've blown through a book as quickly as this one.

Tom Perrotta's Ghost Town is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story about memory, grief, and nostalgia. Emotionally impactful in a way that feels as profoundly authentic as any memory ever can, our narrator tells the story of the summer that changed his entire world—of grief striking at that impossible moment in time where you're not quite an adult, but no longer a child—in a way that's often as fleeting as memory itself, and surely just as distorted by time and experience.

Perrotta wholly captures this moment of time—these haunted remnants of grief and reluctant nostalgia—in his prose, completely transporting the reader to moments in their own past, however similar or dissimilar they may be to those in this book. And his extremely short chapters effectively accentuate the fleeting nature of memory; the fleeting nature of remembering moments we'd perhaps rather leave forgotten.

This is an achingly poignant book that captures the complexities behind the ghosts of our past and the concept of home as tragically as it does beautifully. And much like the imperfect nature of memory, Ghost Town never attempts to answer all of the reader's questions or wrap every character's story up in a tidy bow. In that regard, it can leave you wanting—longing for a deeper understanding and more complete resolution of the events recalled—but that's ultimately the point, and it's a point made naturally, staying true to our narrator's haunted past.

That's the dream, right? To look at yourself and be at peace with the person you were and the person you've become.

9/10
[4.5 Stars, Gladly Rounded Up]