The Leftovers (2011) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

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• Kevin Garvey: Mayor of Mapleton
• Jill Garvey: Kevin's daughter. Survivor of the Rapture-like event.
• Laurie Garvey: Kevin's wife.
• Rosalie Sussman: Laurie's friend who enters the Guilty Remnant after her only child, Jen, was raptured.
• Tom Garvey: Kevin and Laurie's son. Member of the Healing Hug movement. Follower of "Holy Wayne"
• Nora Durst: Wife of Doug and mother of Erin and Jeremy who were all lost in the "rapture" Kevin's friend, a "Leftover"
• Aimee: A friend of Jill's who basically moves in with Jill and her Dad, Kevin. She is a bad influence for Jill and Kevin.
• Wayne Gilchrest: Holy Wayne, a father who loses his son in the rapture event. He starts a self help group that grows into a cult with him as the spiritual leader. He takes on 4 spiritual wives, one ends up pregnant with his child. In the end he recants and apologizes to all, leaving behind a wake of despair and a very confused young mother of his child.
• Christine: The fourth wife of Holy Wayne and Chosen One to be the vessel for Holy Wayne's child.
• Hubbs: Tom Garvey's would-be frat brother.
• Doug Durst: Nora Durst's Raptured husband
• Melissa Hulbert: A woman targeted by the Watchers and Kevin's friend.
• Karen: Nora's sister, who is very protective of her and very much involved in her life. She has 2 kids and husband.
• Nick Lazarro: Aimee's boyfriend
• Max Connolly: One of Jill's friends who is easy to talk to.
• Jon Verbecki: The childhood friend of Tom.
• Matt Jamison: Former reverend and Rapture survivor. Publishes and solicits a newsletter attempting to prove that the event was not truly the rapture.
• Marcella Falk: One of Holy Wayne's followers.
• Meg Lomax: A novice within the Guilty Remnant under Laurie's tutelage.
• Kylie Mannheim: Little Sprouts Academy teacher of the Dursts' children and Doug's lover.
• Mark Henning: A soldier who meets Tom and a pregnant Christine on a bus. He joined the army shortly after the Sudden Departure.
• Patti Levin: Director of the Mapleton Guilty Remnant Chapter
• Terrence Falk: A Guilty Remnant sympathizer who has agreed to house Christine after Holy Wayne was arrested.
• Marcella Falk: Terrence's wife.
• Grigori: Female Bulgarian hair colorist
• Holly Maffrey: Jill's fourth grade teacher now a member of the Guilty Remnant

Quotes edit see section history

• “"An indiscriminate Rapture was no Rapture at all."”

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• They both seemed to understand that describing it was beyond their powers, the gratitude that spreads through your body when a burden gets lifted, and the sense of homecoming that follows, when you suddenly remember what it feels like to be yourself.

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• And yet she chose to ignore this knowledge, to banish it to some murky recess of her mind—the basement storage area for things you couldn’t bear to think about—the same place you hid the knowledge that you were going to die, so you could live your life without being depressed every minute of every day.

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• It felt like religious kitsch, as tacky as a black velvet painting, the kind of fantasy that appealed to people who ate too much fried food, spanked their kids, and had no problem with the theory that their loving God invented AIDS to punish the gays.

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• Jill began to understand for herself how absence could warp the mind, make you exaggerate the virtues and minimize the defects of the missing individual.

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• When your words are futile, you’re better off keeping them to yourself, or never even thinking them in the first place.

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• What he was going to miss was her smile in the morning, and the hopeful feeling she gave him, the conviction that fun was still possible, that you were more than the sum of what had been taken from you.

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• many of the people who’d disappeared on October 14th—Hindus and Buddhists and Muslims and Jews and atheists and animists and homosexuals and Eskimos and Mormons and Zoroastrians, whatever the heck they were—hadn’t accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior. As far as anyone could tell, it was a random harvest, and the one thing the Rapture couldn’t be was random. The whole point was to separate the wheat from the chaff, to reward the true believers and put the rest of the world on notice. An indiscriminate Rapture was no Rapture at all.

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• There also weren’t any bad guys to hate, which made everything that much harder to get into focus.

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• Jill felt an emptiness open inside of her as she lifted her arm, a sense that something vital was being subtracted from her life. It was always like that when somebody you cared about went away, even when you knew it was inevitable, and it probably wasn’t your fault.

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• Laurie herself was more focused on the years when her kids were little, when she had felt so necessary and purposeful, a battery all charged up with love. Every day she used it up, and every night it got miraculously replenished. Nothing had ever been as good as that.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Mapleton: The novel's setting.
• Ginkgo Street: The site for the Mapleton Chapter of the Guilty Remnant.
• Outpost 17: A smaller coed residence that Laurie and Meg are moved to after Meg's graduation to become a permanent member of the Guilty Remnant.

Organizations edit see section history

• Guilty Remnant: A group of fanatics who keep a vow of silence, wear only white, and always smoke cigarettes. There are at least sixty of them living in an eight-house subdivision.
• Watchers: Members of the Guilty Remnant who stand sentry near a individual who has been targeted as a potential convert or who is living a unrighteous life in need of saving.
• Barefoot People: Individuals who live a bohemian lifestyle similar to the Haight-Asbury hippies of the 1960s. They group tended to be barefoot and unwashed and spent much of their time under the influence of drugs.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Sudden Departure: The Rapture-like event effecting many non-Christians.
• Eyewitness: An individual who has personally witnessed the Rapture of another.
• Unburdening: A time of day when Guilty Remnant mentor and novice can break the vow of silence for fifteen minutes.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Grief: Many of the residents of Maptleton have to deal with the disappearance of their family members and, in some cases, their entire family grappling with how one goes on under such tragedy.
• survival: Describe this theme.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Tom Perrotta (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3566.E6948L44 2011
• Dewey: Add the Dewey Classification.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction

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