Tom Perrotta, TRACY FLICK CAN'T WIN: A Novel
[0:02]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now
[0:07]Thank you so much. Called moms. Don't have time to read books
[0:10]It is a daily podcast
[0:12]365 days a year and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career
[0:18]Their book their life and more in 30 minutes or less because who has time I am now an author myself
[0:24]Although I wasn't when I started this podcast and you can get my new memoir book ends
[0:29]A memoir of love loss and literature wherever books are sold starting July 1st and my children's book princess charming
[0:36]You can learn more about me at zibby Owens.com
[0:39]But really you're here to learn more about the authors and that is what we're going to do
[0:43]Also be sure to check out all the other podcasts in the zcast podcast network
[0:49]You can learn more at zcastnetwork.com and definitely check out those shows as well
[0:54]I hope you'll all check out the all-new zibby bag
[1:01]ZI BBY MAG the literary lifestyle destination with essays book news a lit lifestyle feature and
[1:09]Even some classes check it out zibby bag.com
[1:13]Tom Perota is the author of the novel Tracy flick can't win plus nine other best-selling works of fiction
[1:20]Including election and little children both of which were made into critically acclaimed movies one with Reese Witherspoon
[1:27]And the leftovers and Mrs. Fletcher which were both adapted into HBO series
[1:31]Oh, I watch Mrs. Fletcher too. He lives outside Boston
[1:35]Welcome Tom. Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss Tracy flick can't win
[1:41]Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure
[1:42]This is the best cover because this is how I feel every single day pretty much this hunched over my desk glasses on the side
[1:49]This could be you could be actually just taking a picture
[1:52]Right now at the end of the day. So anyway, okay Tracy flick can't win. Tell me why did we go back to these characters?
[2:00]What happens tell me the whole story and tell listeners what what this book is about?
[2:05]Okay, well Tracy flick if anyone knows the book or the film election
[2:10]was a
[2:12]Very ambitious high school student who
[2:15]Was running for president of her school and her teacher was so resentful and
[2:21]annoyed
[2:22]But by her that he actually tried to steal the election from her and so that was a story that was kind of a political allegory that I wrote
[2:33]25 years ago or so and it was turned into a wonderful movie by Alexander Payne
[2:39]It starred Reese Witherspoon and as a result. I think of Reese's completely magnetic performance
[2:46]Tracy flick became a kind of
[2:49]cultural archetype
[2:51]She embodied
[2:53]this idea of the
[2:55]Unpleasantly ambitious young woman who is going to do whatever it takes to get to the top
[3:00]Which by the way is something that we admire and men
[3:03]But I think found a little bit threatening any young woman and I had the weird experience as a writer of just watching this character
[3:12]Turn into a kind of
[3:14]stereotype or a shorthand for this female ambition
[3:18]And what was interesting was then it also had a certain point Tracy was seen as a villain early on and then
[3:25]I think recently feminist sort of
[3:28]took a second look and said wait a second why is Tracy
[3:32]A villain while she is as a teenage girl who is trying to
[3:36]Get elected president of her high school got a scholarship so she can go to college because she's been raised by a single mom
[3:41]She really she needs it and
[3:44]You know, yeah, she does a couple of dumb teenage things she ripped some posters for her opponent
[3:50]And then lies about it, but that's it. She's no villain
[3:52]She's a teenage a teenager
[3:55]So that was part of it was just me watching this character become part of
[4:00]a larger cultural discussion about women and ambition and then there was a second more specific thing for me
[4:06]Which was that in the original book election and in the film Tracy has a sexual relationship with a teacher when she's in high school and
[4:16]At the time in in election the novel. She's very defiant about it. She says like I wanted it
[4:23]I
[4:23]We had this relationship. I realized it was not for me and I stopped it and so she tells the story of her own agency
[4:30]She was up for this relationship and then she realized it was a mistake and then she broke up with the teacher
[4:36]And he was the one who acted immature and he got caught and he got fired end of story
[4:42]She's just going to continue on with her teenage life
[4:45]She's going to get elected president. She's going to get that scholarship and you know when the me too
[4:51]Moment happened. I thought as a writer. I wondered if I had told the story in in the
[4:57]Right way just because I noticed when I was reading me two stories so many women talking about
[5:03]Relationships just like this and saying well at the time. It seemed like something. I wanted but now that I look back
[5:10]I understand that it's wrong and in this new book Tracy flick can't win Tracy is an assistant principal at a high school
[5:16]She's still there as a high school principal. She knows it's wrong for a teacher to do this and so she's having to confront
[5:24]This experience that she has
[5:27]crafted an narrative about and now she's
[5:30]That narrative is starting to feel shaky. She says and this whole book is about Tracy
[5:34]In middle age taking inventory of her life and wondering why she hasn't lived up to her
[5:40]Very powerful ambitions for herself and thinking about the way that the deck seems to be stacked against her
[5:47]She's hitting a glass ceiling in her life and she's wondering is it me or is it the world?
[5:53]I know many people hitting that exact same thing. I feel like they're little they'll be like
[5:59]Prince of people's
[6:01]Head like hair stuff on all those glass ceilings, you know from so many people popping up against the same place never mind weird visual
[6:07]But I think you know what I mean like I do
[6:11]And commonplace to bump up against at this time in our lives
[6:15]Yeah, and you know we saw it in our political system, you know Hillary Clinton seemed like she had everything
[6:22]That it would take to get elected. She had experience. She had the brain
[6:26]She was a hard worker. She had paid her dues. She'd been a senator and
[6:31]She did not win against him and who was
[6:34]you know
[6:36]Lazy and inexperienced and unprepared
[6:39]You know worse than that and and the question was
[6:43]You know what she had bad candidate did people not like her and that was seemed to be part of this question of you know
[6:49]Because because that was also something about Tracy. She seemed very hard-edged and a little bit
[6:54]Unfeminine and the teacher
[6:57]Resented her and and I think there was some question again of like okay
[7:02]Was it just Hillary or is it any female candidate who can't win and and so yes that glass ceiling affects
[7:10]You know women at all phases of
[7:14]Their their career. I think it also is as you say a middle-aged thing. So even as a middle-aged man
[7:21]there is that melancholy of just I had this big dream and
[7:26]you know
[7:27]Now I have a life that's somewhat smaller than than that dream and
[7:32]What do I make of that? How do I count for it? How do I find peace within myself?
[7:38]I feel like if you
[7:40]The more resigned you are into something like that the less
[7:43]It just sets your like it it negates the
[7:47]The potential of the rest of your life. Right just because middle-aged comes. I feel so many people think okay well
[7:55]This is what happened. I mean, I guess this is where I ended up
[7:59]But there are decades left to live. Yeah, I totally do and I think that's where we find Tracy in this book
[8:06]At the beginning she is in that state of like
[8:10]You know my life is what it is and then what happens is the the principal job opens up at her school and
[8:19]You know, she's like, you know rocky coming back for one more one more fight, you know
[8:24]It's like she is who she is because
[8:29]She is really Brazilian and tough, but but also her
[8:33]Ambition that flame of her ambition has never been fully extinguished. I think
[8:38]This novel is about
[8:40]Somebody kind of coming out of a funk and sensing that that there's another chapter
[8:46]To be told as it just suggested
[8:49]If not now win
[8:53]Tell me about structuring this in a way with vino falcon's making amends for all of his past sins and how you have
[9:00]Introducing all these characters by when he meets them to apologize
[9:05]Yeah, so so this book
[9:07]Did not start out as a book about Tracy flick. Let me say that I it started out
[9:12]I was writing about this high school hall of fame
[9:15]And I didn't know Tracy was part of this high school
[9:16]But the idea was that that this high school invites a former football player
[9:22]Back to town to induct him into the hall of fame and honor his his teenage greatness
[9:28]And this guy is also in his 40s like Tracy his name is vino falcon
[9:32]He's a former NFL football player
[9:34]And he's only for like three years, right? Only yeah, he had a very very
[9:39]Undistinguished career, but sadly he's also
[9:43]He's is now a recovering alcoholic and he is suffering from what he suspects might be
[9:50]some brain damage from
[9:52]Concussions that he suffered on the field
[9:54]And what what I imagine was the story about
[10:00]middle-aged man who comes back to his hometown to be honored, but really there's all these people
[10:05]in the town who have unfinished business with him who resent him for the bad way that he treated
[10:12]them back when he was young and was this golden boy. Because it seemed to me like that's really
[10:18]like a great image of American masculinity right now. Like, you know, we had our golden years
[10:25]and now the culture has gone, hey, wait a second, we got some things to talk about.
[10:30]And I think, you know, so Vito is somebody who's treated a lot of people badly in his life,
[10:35]like a lot of men who have power, right? And, but he also...
[10:39]And even like the boy he left on the side of the road that was like heartbreaking as a coach.
[10:46]Oh my gosh. I know, it's all right. So we catch him in that stage of making events
[10:50]in a 12-step recovery program. And we just find out all the things that Vito has done
[10:58]to people. And so, yes, you mentioned there's a boy that he, a football player on his team was
[11:03]young and he refused to let him ride home on the bus because he had made a mistake on the field.
[11:08]And, you know, it can seem awful now, but coaches got away with murder when I was a kid.
[11:16]You know, that was a place. It was almost like a quasi-military place and there was a kind of cruelty.
[11:21]It still happens, right? You still hear these stories about hazing and, you know, there's just
[11:28]bad stuff happens in locker rooms, but not like it used to be just considered like,
[11:33]yeah, that happens. That's part of being a man, part of being an athlete. And I think,
[11:39]you know, the culture just is less tolerant of it now, which is great. And I think Vito is having to
[11:45]look back and literally say, I'm sorry to all these people who, I mean, it's almost funny.
[11:51]He treated people so badly. There's almost some humor in that. It's not funny if you're on
[11:56]the wrong end of it. It's funny to find out that he was so awful.
[12:02]Yeah. Well, he's also like shooting himself in the foot over again when he's apologizing.
[12:07]He's like apologizing for things that people didn't even know about. You know, like,
[12:10]and also my mom is still alive or my dad is still alive. Yes.
[12:14]What? You know, I'm getting off the foot. It's like this guy, like you just want to be like,
[12:18]no, stop. It's a Pandora's box for some people. Did you play sports? Did you play football
[12:25]growing up? I did. Yes. But I'm not very big. So my football career ended sophomore year when I
[12:32]realized that I was not going to be. I played quarterback and was captain in my freshman team,
[12:39]but then sophomore year, everybody grew and I stayed the same and I couldn't, I couldn't see.
[12:45]And, you know, I would try to tackle people. I hit them as hard as I could and I'd end up
[12:50]just, you know, on the ground. I think I, you know, I realized that I was physically not up to it.
[12:58]And it was kind of, you know, a real moment of tribulation for me because it's what I had dreamed
[13:05]about. And then my constellation was to sort of migrate into the artsy side of high school.
[13:13]I, you know, tried to play guitar but wasn't that good. But then I started to really get into
[13:18]reading. And when I started to write, I felt what I knew I didn't have with music because I
[13:25]played with other musicians and they would be like, oh, it just goes like this and they would do it.
[13:28]And it seemed like there was no obstacle between like what they were hearing and what they could
[13:32]play or is for me, it was just all obstacle. But then when I wrote, I had that feeling of like,
[13:37]oh, I know how to do this. I stopped here and I jumped to there and, and, you know, this would be
[13:43]the way to end it. You know, just those things that seemed so mysterious to me in music, like I just
[13:48]couldn't follow it. When I wrote, I felt like, oh, I think I'm good at this. And that's a very
[13:53]powerful feeling when you're a young person, I think, to sense like, oh, okay, I'm good. And then,
[14:01]then becomes, then comes the real journey as a writer, which is you find out that talent is
[14:07]such a small part of it and that you need so many other things. You need to read widely and deeply,
[14:12]you need to fail and be rejected and toughen up and find a voice that is particularly yours.
[14:22]But I do think it was, you know, it gave me the fuel to start that journey, this feeling that I
[14:27]could be good at this. Basically, if you were six, two, we would not be talking about this book.
[14:33]I would be apologizing to you. My husband, by the way, was the same thing.
[14:40]Quarterback didn't grow enough and had to stop and he actually went into tenants and then ended up
[14:45]like doing that professionally. But, um, that's a different kind of happy ending.
[14:50]Yeah, different, different. But, you know, but I guess with writing, you know, you could do it
[14:53]forever. You don't, your knees are fine. You can do it as long as you want and it's a better,
[15:00]better place to arrive at, honestly. So, yeah, well, I wish there were better tennis player though.
[15:08]But, yes, you're right. It is, it is a really interesting thing that you've
[15:12]writing could be a lifelong journey. And, you know, I guess the question is, I just
[15:18]was reading this book by Jeff Dyer called the final days of Roger Federer. And it's just
[15:23]time that, you know, that that moment in everyone's life when, you know, you're trying to
[15:29]stave off the end. And he's sort of talking about that. Like every book, he thinks is going to be
[15:35]his last book. And that's what sort of motivates him to get through it. But then he has to immediately
[15:39]start another one so that he can have another last book that he's working on. But I do,
[15:44]you know, there are writers like Philip Roth and Alice Monroe were able to write, you know,
[15:49]well past low into their 70s, you know, and that is, you know, as like an older, that's an inspiring
[15:56]vision. I do think, though, that the aging athlete is something that the community at large,
[16:02]almost like veterans, like has sort of dropped the ball on, so to speak, right? You go,
[16:08]we put so much emphasis on athletics and, you know, I have four kids. I have two boys and it's
[16:13]like from the minute, you know, it's like always, boom, like what are they going to do? What's
[16:16]the next? And then, and then people will talent, like what happens then? Like when your life
[16:23]goes a different way, what are you equipped to do? What do you, how do you come off of that and
[16:27]have an all that attention and, you know, even with the arts, right? If when you're performing,
[16:32]how do you then migrate into another life, especially if CTE plays into it also? I don't know,
[16:38]I just feel like there's no good, like, thank you for your years of service on entertaining
[16:43]the rest of us and playing, this is your life now. Good luck, right? Like, where is the welcome
[16:50]bag to part two? Yeah, I know. And I think, you know, so much of this book, Tracy Flekin,
[16:55]when is about getting older in a really competitive society? You know, I mean, Tracy is a competitor
[17:03]and this book is about her, you know, finding a way to compete again in her 40s. But I
[17:09]do think there's also a critique underneath it of a society that is all about winning and is also
[17:16]about youth and promise and not so much about, you know, finding ways to age gracefully or finding
[17:25]ways to make peace with the fact that you're no longer competing. And so I think, you know,
[17:31]all these issues are related somehow and they're part of, you know, the culture that we're in,
[17:38]which I think does make it, it's hard enough, you know, to get older and to feel, you know, that
[17:43]you're losing some of your physical abilities. But, you know, the culture also serves as well,
[17:50]you know, we're not even noticing you anymore. Yeah, sort of like the rise and fall of
[17:57]Francesca Diane's hopes. So I love her, by the way. So you have Francesca Diane who has this
[18:05]unrequited, well, I guess, required it for a time love and keeps hoping for the principal to be able
[18:12]to officially leave it while it was, you know, you introduce this terrible illness. So of course,
[18:19]she can't wish anything ill upon his wife. But of course, she's longing for him all along the way
[18:25]and just waiting and waiting and waiting. And it's like, anyway, a little heartbreaking.
[18:32]Yeah, so that's another story in this book. So it's it's told Tracy Flakam when it's told
[18:38]it's a kind of ensemble story set around this high school. And one of the characters, as you say,
[18:43]is Francesca Diane. She's the person who greets you and you come to the main office. And she's
[18:48]everybody loves her in town. She's kind of a local celebrity because she's been doing the job forever.
[18:54]And she knows to everyone. And they, and she's always friendly and helpful. But she has a secret,
[19:00]which is that she has been once had a long term affair with her principal, who's the guy who's
[19:09]about to retire. And, you know, this is another case of somebody who is having to grapple with
[19:16]a huge disappointment in her life that she couldn't be with the man she loved and has to
[19:21]work beside him and also feel guilty about the fact that she had an affair with him.
[19:26]You know, rather than a sort of relationship on the up and up. And you know, I think that came
[19:32]partly I wrote the novel election when I was younger. And I sort of poked fun at the people in
[19:39]the front office, the way you do when you're young and you are maybe not seeing the world with,
[19:45]you know, the eyes of somebody older and a little more compassionate. And I just feel like I
[19:50]don't want to make a joke out of this school secretary, you know, I want to see the school secretary
[19:54]as a full human being. And that kind of guided me.
[20:00]into that story. And she is a figure, I think, who I also had, like enormous tenderness for,
[20:06]because it's, you know, people see her and know her, or they think they do, but they don't
[20:12]really see her and know her. And I think that's part of what fiction does. It gives us an opportunity
[20:19]to see people who can kind of imagine their lives, people who we might just walk right past
[20:26]in the world. That just seems like a really important thing that fiction does.
[20:30]You had this sort of sad moment of her hiding out from the whole community in the grocery
[20:36]store late at night, like finding the off-times, so she's not accosted at the store. But you never
[20:42]know. I mean, you could easily, it could have easily come from, you know, my going to grocery today
[20:48]and seeing somebody and wondering, oh, I wonder what her story is. And then little do you know,
[20:52]she's like the lynchpin of the whole community where she works. So I don't know, you just don't
[20:58]know. This obviously sounds ridiculous, but there's so much you don't know when people make all
[21:03]these snap judgments about people that they pass throughout the course of the day and whether it's
[21:07]their profession or their longing or their love or all the things they've gone through or their
[21:12]addiction or whatever. Anyway, I think that's one of the greatest things that novels do is
[21:17]remind people to stop doing that, like that there's a whole story inside of everybody.
[21:22]Yeah, you know, when I was a teacher, one of the things I would say is just
[21:28]write a story about the person who lives next door to you. Because that was something I
[21:32]realized at a certain point in my life. Every time I lived next to somebody, it turned out they had
[21:37]some amazing story. Yes. And unfortunately, go what a coincidence. My neighbor has an amazing story.
[21:44]Well, now it turns out everybody has an amazing story. And you just, you know, have to have the
[21:50]patience and the empathy to kind of listen to it or, you know, in some cases as a fiction writer
[21:55]to imagine it. But I do, you know, take that to heart as a writer that especially, you know, I
[22:01]don't write about for the most part about adventures or, or, you know, people who are super powerful
[22:09]or wealthy, you know, I tried to write about ordinary people and see their lives in a kind of
[22:15]full way. When I was younger and I would get seated next to somebody in a dinner party or something
[22:21]like that. And I would have a bad conversation and I would think to myself, like, oh, okay, well,
[22:25]I got seated next to somebody so dull or so boring or whatever. And now that I'm this age and maybe
[22:30]because I have conversations for a living somehow, I'm like, if I find that my conversation's boring,
[22:35]then I haven't done my job. Like, that's my fault. Right. Then I haven't figured out the person,
[22:40]like, what is that person's story? Because it's always interesting. There's always something,
[22:44]right? So, yes. I mean, they're boring people in the world. And I think they might have,
[22:52]they might have interesting stories. But I do think I have been at dinner parties and have tried.
[23:00]Yeah. And sometimes you can't get past the surface of, you know, people are actively repelling
[23:09]you maybe because they don't want to tell you their story or they don't understand really what's
[23:14]interesting about them. I think that's possible sometimes. But I agree that that if you could
[23:19]somehow get people to open up and tell you their story, that there is something there that
[23:26]that's fascinating. But they don't always know what it is. And I might not know what my story is.
[23:31]You know, I think, Tom, what is your story? Tell us what time it's you interested. Tell me.
[23:38]Well, that will be, I think sometimes a fiction writer, you know, I think, so I grew up in a
[23:48]very working class community. My parents didn't go to college. And it's been very important for me
[23:55]to try and write books that are accessible to a lot of different people. Like, I don't believe
[23:59]in a literary culture that only belongs to, you know, highly educated people. But I will also say,
[24:05]you know, my parents were much more culturally conservative than I was. And so I got used to kind of,
[24:11]you know, hiding aspects of myself from them. Not that there was anything particularly scandalous.
[24:18]It was just generational. And I think that fiction writing appealed to me because there just
[24:24]these layers of masks that you can, so I could just say to my parents, well, that's not me. That's,
[24:30]you know, that's a character I wrote. And so I do think there is some, and that's part of what
[24:36]is, I think, why fiction exists, right? Is that, you know, we can tell certain kinds of truths
[24:43]more easily if there's a layer of distance or, you know, plausible deniability. So for me, at least,
[24:52]I think I've never found a way to write a memoir or write honestly about myself. I think that
[25:00]this habit of sort of keeping my privacy has encouraged me to be a fiction writer. And I can
[25:08]range really widely as a fiction writer. I'm not one of those fiction writers who, you know,
[25:12]sticks really close to his own experience. But I do think there is some element that comes from
[25:18]growing up of, of like, not, not being fully open. And that that fiction is the only,
[25:26]I need that device to kind of tell my truths. Just saying, see, who knew? Do you know, not me?
[25:38]Well, thank you so much, Tom, for coming on. Thanks for reintroducing Tracy Flick. But mostly,
[25:43]we're not to disparage her in any way. But I just love all the other characters and how
[25:47]many characters there were and how you just kept bouncing us from play person to person and
[25:53]giving us so many different vantage points to keep it really interesting. And, and also of course,
[25:58]continuing this fabulous character. So anyway, it was really fun chatting. And I look forward to
[26:03]hearing if your dinner party conversations are now spiced up. You can think of me.
[26:06]Okay. Well, thank you so much. And thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.
[26:10]My pleasure. Congratulations. Bye bye. Okay. Bye bye.
[26:15]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:18]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:24]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[26:28]of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan Beck, Texture Sound for
[26:33]the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro
[26:38]and atrium music.