Ghost Town

A middle-aged man makes peace with his childhood trauma in Perrotta’s stellar latest (after Tracy Flick Can’t Win). Accomplished novelist Jimmy Perrini looks back on his youth in bucolic Creamwood, N.J., after receiving an invitation to a building dedication ceremony in his father’s name. He still hasn’t fully processed the tragic summer of 1974, when, at 13, an unexpected death shook him to his core and left his family unmoored (the details come out late in the novel). Left with “an endless bad dream,” Jimmy stumbled through the rest of his boyhood, which took another dark turn after he struck up a volatile friendship with Eddie, an older boy who smoked weed and drove a Chevy Vega with racing stripes, and Olivia, a high school valedictorian who introduced him to the mysterious magic of a Ouija board. The story lines run parallel as Jimmy’s present-day indifference about returning to Creamwood collides with intense memories of that fateful summer. Perrotta is a confident storyteller, and he packs a great deal of heart into this tale of moving forward amid crushing grief, in which a writer finally gets a chance to exorcise “the demons you think you’ve outrun.” This is sure to resonate with Perrotta’s longtime fans and win him new ones. Agent: Maria Massie, Massie & McQuilkin. (Apr.)