Welcome to Gap Test Reads.

I'm David Plott, one of the hosts of Slates Political Gap Test.

There is almost no novelist I read as often and with as much pleasure as Tom Perotta.

He writes books about everyday people very often in New Jersey, grappling with the modest

indignities and annoying conflicts of regular life.

Perotta's characters are extremely human, which is to say they are generally weak in small

ways and kind in medium-sized ways.

His books, which include the leftovers, the absence teacher, little children and Mrs.

Fletcher, are name four of my favorites, are also very funny, which is one reason why

they're always becoming great TV shows and movies.

And we are here today because Tom Perotta has a new novel that's a sequel to perhaps

his most famous book, Election.

Its title is Tracey Flick Can't Win and that title is a glorious beacon that we are about

to spend 250 pages in the presence of one of the most interesting and unquestionably

most important characters in recent American culture.

Tom Perotta, welcome to Gap Test Reads.

Oh, hi, David.

I'm so happy to be here.

So what has happened to Tracey Flick, the hero or anti-hero of your book election, between

the end of election and the beginning of Tracey Flick Can't Win?

When we left Tracey in election, she had been restored to her rightful place as the

president of her high school, which her teacher had tried to deprive her of through fraud.

...