Tom Perrotta Recommends: 7 Books with Dark, Edgy Storytelling

May 1 2023
Share Tom Perrotta Recommends: 7 Books with Dark, Edgy Storytelling

Mrs. Fletcher, Election, The Leftovers . . . Tom Perrotta’s books involve wholly American stories that place oddball characters in unconventional situations that result in a deep and sometimes hilarious look into societal taboos. And, as a note for book clubs, they often generate some interesting, edgy topics for fun discussions. The books that he recommends similarly take a deep dive into all the complexities of the human condition: its beauties, absurdities, tragedies, and all!


Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-post.php on line 16

Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-post.php on line 17

Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-post.php on line 17

Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-post.php on line 18

Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-post.php on line 18
<br />
<b>Notice</b>:  Trying to get property 'post_title' of non-object in <b>/var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-post.php</b> on line <b>31</b><br />

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-post.php on line 33
|+| Add to Your Shelf

Notice: Trying to get property 'post_title' of non-object in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-post.php on line 37
by

Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-post.php on line 50

Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-post.php on line 50


Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 851

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 852

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 853

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 854

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 855

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 856

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 857

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 858

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 860

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 862

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 863

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 864

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-modal.php on line 18

Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-modal.php on line 21

Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-modal.php on line 21

Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-modal.php on line 23

Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-modal.php on line 23


Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-modal.php on line 40
|+| Add to Your Shelf

Notice: Trying to get property 'post_title' of non-object in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-modal.php on line 46


Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-modal.php on line 52

Notice: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /var/www/offtheshelf.com/htdocs/web/app/themes/ots/_inc/template-parts/books/book-modal.php on line 52


Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 851

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 852

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 853

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 854

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 855

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 856

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 857

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 858

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 860

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 862

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 863

Notice: Trying to get property 'ID' of non-object in /var/www/symlinks/bookmanager/post-types/bookmanager_template.php on line 864
Close
The Sunken Cathedral
by Kate Walbert

“THE SUNKEN CATHEDRAL is a gem of a novel—lyrical, ominous, and unexpectedly funny. Kate Walbert has somehow managed to write an elegy for a Manhattan that still exists, and characters who—like most of us—would prefer not to think about their impending doom.” Tom Perrotta

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo iTunes logo Kobo logo Kindle logo Bookshop logo Libro.fm logo
The Sunken Cathedral
Kate Walbert

From the highly acclaimed, bestselling National Book Award nominee, a “funny…beautiful…audacious…masterful” (J. Courtney Sullivan, The Boston Globe) novel about the way memory haunts and shapes the present.

Marie and Simone, friends for decades, were once immigrants to the city, survivors of World War II in Europe. Now widows living alone in Chelsea, they remain robust, engaged, and adventurous, even as the vistas from their past interrupt their present. Helen is an art historian who takes a painting class with Marie and Simone. Sid Morris, their instructor, presides over a dusty studio in a tenement slated for condo conversion; he awakes the interest of both Simone and Marie. Elizabeth is Marie’s upstairs tenant, a woman convinced that others have a secret way of being, a confidence and certainty she lacks. She is increasingly unmoored—baffled by her teenage son, her husband, and the roles she is meant to play.

In a chorus of voices, Kate Walbert, a “wickedly smart, gorgeous writer” (The New York Times Book Review), explores the growing disconnect between the world of action her characters inhabit and the longings, desires, and doubts they experience. Interweaving long narrative footnotes, Walbert paints portraits of marriage, of friendship, and of love in its many facets, always limning the inner life, the place of deepest yearning and anxiety. The Sunken Cathedral is a stunningly beautiful, profoundly wise novel about the way we live now—“fascinating, moving, and significant” (Ron Charles, The Washington Post).

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo iTunes logo Kobo logo Kindle logo Bookshop logo Libro.fm logo

MENTIONED IN:

Tom Perrotta Recommends: 7 Books with Dark, Edgy Storytelling

By Off the Shelf Staff | May 1, 2023

The 10 Most Popular Books We Craved in January 2022

By Off the Shelf Staff | January 31, 2022

7 Lyrical Stories That’ll Take Your Breath Away

By Holly Claytor | January 10, 2022

Close
The God Game
by Danny Tobey

“THE GOD GAME is a dark, edgy thriller, populated by a vastly appealing cast of teenage underdogs. Danny Tobey has written an unusually smart and provocative novel, a book full of ideas and heart that feels both fantastical and all-too-real at the same time.” —Tom Perrotta

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo iTunes logo Kobo logo Kindle logo Bookshop logo Libro.fm logo
The God Game
Danny Tobey

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo iTunes logo Kobo logo Kindle logo Bookshop logo Libro.fm logo

MENTIONED IN:

Tom Perrotta Recommends: 7 Books with Dark, Edgy Storytelling

By Off the Shelf Staff | May 1, 2023

Close
Milk Fed
by Melissa Broder

"Smart, funny, sexy, and hard to put down. In this fast-moving, deeply compelling novel, Melissa Broder combines an unexpected (and very hot) love story with a sharp-edged examination of body image, religion, and cultural identity." —Tom Perrotta

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo iTunes logo Kobo logo Kindle logo Bookshop logo Libro.fm logo
Milk Fed
Melissa Broder

Named a Best Book of the Year by Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, Time, Esquire, BookPage, and more

This darkly hilarious and “delicious new novel that ravishes with sex and food” (The Boston Globe) from the acclaimed author of The Pisces and So Sad Today is a “precise blend of desire, discomfort, spirituality, and existential ache” (BuzzFeed).

Rachel is twenty-four, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of existential control, through obsessive food rituals, while working as an underling at a Los Angeles talent management agency. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. Rachel is content to carry on subsisting—until her therapist encourages her to take a ninety-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting.

Rachel soon meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favorite frozen yogurt shop and is intent upon feeding her. Rachel is suddenly and powerfully entranced by Miriam—by her sundaes and her body, her faith and her family—and as the two grow closer, Rachel embarks on a journey marked by mirrors, mysticism, mothers, milk, and honey.

“A ruthless, laugh-out-loud examination of life under the tyranny of diet culture” (Glamour) Broder tells a tale of appetites: physical hunger, sexual desire, spiritual longing, and the ways that we compartmentalize these so often interdependent instincts. Milk Fed is “riotously funny and perfectly profane” (Refinery 29) from “a wild, wicked mind” (Los Angeles Times).

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo iTunes logo Kobo logo Kindle logo Bookshop logo Libro.fm logo

MENTIONED IN:

10 Books That Altered My Brain Chemistry

By Sharon Van Meter | October 6, 2023

8 Bold Books to Read When You’re Feeling Scandalous

By Katya Buresh | August 3, 2023

Tom Perrotta Recommends: 7 Books with Dark, Edgy Storytelling

By Off the Shelf Staff | May 1, 2023

11 Savory Novels Filled with Fictional Feasts

By Off the Shelf Staff | December 13, 2022

8 Books Every Devoted Sally Rooney Fan Must Read

By Kelly Dasta | May 9, 2022

8 Book Clubs We Admire for Their Excellent Taste in Reading

By Book Club Favorites | January 13, 2022

Close
Friends and Strangers
by J. Courtney Sullivan

“FRIENDS AND STRANGERS is a smart and deeply compelling exploration of female friendship and the complicated politics of motherhood and childcare. J. Courtney Sullivan is a shrewd and sympathetic observer of our current cultural moment, with an unerring eye for the way that the unspoken realities of money and class can affect even our most intimate relationships.” Tom Perrotta

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo iTunes logo Kobo logo Kindle logo Bookshop logo Libro.fm logo
Friends and Strangers
J. Courtney Sullivan

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo iTunes logo Kobo logo Kindle logo Bookshop logo Libro.fm logo

MENTIONED IN:

Tom Perrotta Recommends: 7 Books with Dark, Edgy Storytelling

By Off the Shelf Staff | May 1, 2023

Close
Mother Daughter Widow Wife
by Robin Wasserman

“MOTHER DAUGHTER WIDOW WIFE is suspenseful, keenly intelligent, and thoroughly engrossing. Robin Wasserman’s novel explores the complexities of memory and identity with unflinching clarity and deep compassion.” —Tom Perrotta

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo iTunes logo Kobo logo Kindle logo Bookshop logo Libro.fm logo
Mother Daughter Widow Wife
Robin Wasserman

*Finalist for the 2021 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction​*

From the author of Girls on Fire comes a “sharp and soulful and ferociously insightful” (Leslie Jamison) novel centered around a woman with no memory, the scientists studying her, and the daughter who longs to understand.

Wendy Doe is a woman with no past and no future. Without any memory of who she is, she’s diagnosed with dissociative fugue, a temporary amnesia that could lift at any moment—or never at all—and invited by Dr. Benjamin Strauss to submit herself for experimental observation at his Meadowlark Institute for Memory Research. With few better options, Wendy feels she has no choice.

To Dr. Strauss, Wendy is a female body, subject to his investigation and control. To Strauss’s ambitious student, Lizzie Epstein, she’s an object of fascination, a mirror of Lizzie’s own desires, and an invitation to wonder: once a woman is untethered from all past and present obligations of womanhood, who is she allowed to become?

To Alice, the daughter she left behind, Wendy Doe is an absence so present it threatens to tear Alice’s world apart. Through their attempts to untangle Wendy’s identity—as well as her struggle to construct a new self—Wasserman has crafted an “artful meditation on memory and identity” (The New York Times Book Review) and a journey of discovery, reckoning, and reclamation. “A timely examination of memory, womanhood and power,” (Time) Mother Daughter Widow Wife will leave you “utterly riveted” (BuzzFeed).

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo iTunes logo Kobo logo Kindle logo Bookshop logo Libro.fm logo

MENTIONED IN:

Tom Perrotta Recommends: 7 Books with Dark, Edgy Storytelling

By Off the Shelf Staff | May 1, 2023

Close
The Days of Afrekete
by Asali Solomon

“THE DAYS OF AFREKETE is one of the most enjoyable novels I’ve read in a long time. Asali Solomon is a wickedly astute observer of the human condition, alert to all our weaknesses and absurdities, as well as our occasional moments of transcendence. The clarity of her vision is sometimes unsettling, but it’s always revelatory." Tom Perrotta

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Kobo logo Kindle logo Bookshop logo Libro.fm logo
The Days of Afrekete
Asali Solomon

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Kobo logo Kindle logo Bookshop logo Libro.fm logo

MENTIONED IN:

Tom Perrotta Recommends: 7 Books with Dark, Edgy Storytelling

By Off the Shelf Staff | May 1, 2023

Close

Photo credit: iStock / Jelena990

You must be logged in to add books to your shelf.

Please log in or sign up now.