The ones left behind

What happens if suddenly, without any antecedents or explanation, people suddenly disappear? Where will any of our loved ones, friends, or neighbors who were just a short distance away go? Do we think that this would be the rapture prophesied in the Bible? And what will happen to us, who are left here? These are the questions that the characters in Tom Perrotta's novel, the inhabitants of a small American town, Mapleton, face. Some collapse, some try to continue or restart their lives; some are struck by the realization that they were not among the worthy raptured, and some become members of a penitent sect, aware of the destruction that follows the rapture and precedes the Day of Judgment. The exceptional basic situation classifies the novel in the genre of mysticism, while it is thoroughly about real people who love, are happy or suffer, find their place in the world, and live.