Back during the start of the pandemic, I watched the miniseries Mrs. Fletcher on HBO. I had no clue it was based on a novel of the same name, so when I saw it discounted at my local bookstore, I snatched it up right away. In thinking back, I really enjoyed that miniseries when at first I was a little nervous to start it.
The show ended up being pretty faithful to the novel, where the main focus of the film is on Eve, a divorced and new empty-nester, middle-aged woman who’s going through a bit of her own coming of age story. Eve works as the executive director of a senior center, and while she loves her job, is feeling antsy and stuck after sending her only son off to college. To rectify her loneliness, she becomes close with a new and younger co-worker, Amanda, and signs up for a writing class at the local community college. During this time, Eve also starts really getting into porn. While the end of Eve’s journey ends a little bit differently than it did in the show, she still gets her sexual fantasies answered.
On the flip side, we get a good amount of Eve’s son, Branden’s, perspective. I hated him for most of the novel, much like I did in the show. It’s clear this kid peaked in high school and has no desire to change his ways. His inner monologue is cringe-worthy most of the time, but I was glad to see him finally turn his life around a little bit in the end. I think he learned some hard lessons, and I found it interesting he never confided in any one in his family. There were a few other perspectives thrown in there which weren’t too hard to decipher, like Amanda, Julian, Margo, and Amber. Shifting to their perspectives were interesting, because it allowed you to see another side of the story.
Similar to the show, my favorite section in the book was all the time Eve spent in her creative writing class. Some of the other students were more fleshed out in the show, but the professor, Margo Fairchild is still my favorite. She’s so unique and complex, and I felt like Perrotta really captured those topics well. Eve definitely had the most interesting interactions with this group of people, as well. I liked how it took her out of the workplace and got her interacting with, honestly, new friends. Even though Eve enjoyed the class and succeed in it, she enjoyed it more for the comradery and how it broke up the routine of her normal, everyday life.
Overall, it was a fun read, and I’m glad I got to relive that story another time.