Tom Perrotta has built his career writing about life in the American suburbs. Not the idealized versions found in John Hughes movies or Norman Rockwell paintings, but the emotional undercurrents and quiet tensions running beneath the ideal American family and community. His new novel, “Ghost Town,” appears very much in line with that practiced work, at least on paper.

The setup is appropriately dramatic: It’s 1970s New Jersey, and 13-year-old Jimmy Perrini fits neatly into the rigid suburban social order, surrounded by perfectly uniform houses and carbon-copy family units. 

But, after his mother dies just a few pages into the novel, he suddenly no longer fits anywhere. Perrotta conveys grief as having a way of turning the familiar unfamiliar, and he captures that sense of estrangement with quiet subtlety.  

The novel is largely told through flashbacks. The adult version of Jimmy, now the successful novelist Jay Perry, narrates from a comfortable distance. With literary acclaim, a loving wife and independent adult children, he carries the appearance of someone who landed on his feet. Then, a letter arrives in the mail, and everything collapses. 

Quickly, the meticulous separation between past and present gives way, and Perry is transported back to a version of himself he thought he had long outgrown. Perrotta leans into this idea, emphasizing how grief never fully disappears but instead quietly collects beneath the routines and facades of adulthood.

I went into this book unfamiliar with Perrotta and his writing style, but it didn’t take long to grasp his rhythms. Nothing is flashy; he writes plainly and without much sentimentality.The dual timelines of boy and man, then and now, give his work a quiet, lived-in sadness.

I wrestled with my feelings about the novel for a while after finishing it. On one hand, it felt digestible and steady. The novel doesn’t try to do too much, carefully focusing on how loss at a formative age can quietly shape everything that follows. There’s restraint to that approach, and at times it works.

Yet, its smallness became frustrating. Perry often felt like a thinly veiled stand-in for Perrotta himself, who also grew up in a working-class New Jersey suburb in the ’70s. I also found the story’s conclusion unsatisfying and predictable. I expected there to be a more supernatural, ghostly angle, but it remains largely pushed to the margins, serving more as a title than anything else.

That said, there’s something to admire about a novel that knows exactly what it is. “Ghost Town” isn’t a reinvention of the unsettling suburban novel, but one told with the steady hand of a writer who has spent decades refining the genre. 

If you know what you’re getting into, it will likely prove a rewarding read. I, however, was left haunted by unmet expectations.

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