Tom Perrotta on TRACY FLICK CAN'T WIN
\u201cTracy never went away. So yes, you can say I'm bringing her back, but the culture kept her in circulation in a way that was really interesting to me, and at times a little alienating. It\u2019s like you create a character and, suddenly, she's played brilliantly by Reese Witherspoon, and in a sense, that becomes the public's image of the character \u2014 and I love that performance as much as anybody. But then Tracy got picked up by political journalists and by the internet as a kind of shorthand for an overly ambitious woman\u2026 In a sense she became a kind of touchstone and a shorthand and sometimes a bit of a stereotype, caricature, whatever.\u201d
Tracy Flick Can\u2019t Win\xa0is the first time Tom Perrotta (Election,\xa0Little Children, The Leftovers, Mrs. Fletcher) has revisited a character from one of his bestselling novels, and his timing couldn\u2019t be better. Tom joins us on the show to talk about comic (and counterintuitive) openers, why he returned to Tracy\u2019s orbit, how our own stories change over time, mental gymnastics, why he doesn\u2019t see himself as a satirist, adapting his work for the screen and much more with Poured Over\u2019s host, Miwa Messer.
Featured Books:
Tracy Flick Can\u2019t Win\xa0by Tom Perrotta
Election\xa0by Tom Perrotta
\xa0
Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays).
\xa0
A full transcript of this episode is available\xa0here.