The Leftovers

On the third anniversary of the rapture, Mapleton holds a parade in remembrance of the people who disappeared that day, who are now framed as heroes. Kevin recently sold his successful chain of liquor stores and received a petition signed by 200 residents asking him to run for office. He accepted the call and now fulfills the town’s mayorship. On the morning of the parade, the Departed Heroes’ Day of Remembrance and Reflection, Kevin is unable to wake his teenaged daughter, Jill, up to attend. Since Laurie is a member of the Guilty Remnant now, Kevin attends the parade alone. He is approached by Reverend Matt Jamison, formerly of the Zion Bible Church, who now identifies with the Rapture Denial movement. He criticizes Kevin for presenting the departed as heroes.

Kevin rides in a convertible and performs “his best impersonation of a small-town politician” (13) for the residents in attendance. Nora Durst, a woman in her thirties who lost her entire family to the rapture, also rides in the procession. The town considers her the person who lost the most on October 14. Kevin remembers the Mapleton parades he attended prior to the rapture and how jubilant the town once was. He is disappointed that Jill isn’t attending, but she disagrees with her father about the ethics of a parade, since those who disappeared don’t care anymore. Kevin argues that the parade is more for the people who are still alive. The two of them have an unsteady relationship.

Groups similar to Mapleton’s Guilty Remnant are spread across the country, forming a loose network. Kevin expects them to make an appearance at the parade, as they are a “wild card” in the town and often perform political demonstrations at events. The parade ends at the newly erected Monument to the Departed at Greenway Park, where Nora gives a keynote speech that describes her continued grief at the loss of her husband and two small children. While listening, Kevin notes that “her suffering gave her authority” (24). During her speech, 20 members of the Guilty Remnant, including Laurie, show up holding a sign that reads “STOP WASTING YOUR BREATH” (27). Nora instructs the police to leave the protestors alone. Kevin watches Laurie, feeling desire and longing for her, but neither makes a move to approach the other. The Guilty Remnant members walk off at the end of the speech.

Jill Garvey does not believe in “[romanticizing] the missing” (29) through parades and remembrance days. On the day of the rapture, she was watching YouTube videos with Jen Sussman when Jen suddenly disappeared. Jill is considered an eyewitness. Jill’s friendship with Jen depended largely on the fact that their mothers were best friends. After Jen began spending more time with a different group of girls at the end of middle school, the two drifted apart, though Jill often followed Jen on social media to keep up with her life.

After Laurie unexpectedly abandoned Jill to join the Guilty Remnant, Jill realized “how absence could warp the mind” (32). She longed desperately for her mother and had a hard time reconciling the “complicated, slightly oppressive relationship” (32) they had with her intense need to be in her mother’s presence. Jill made a list of all of Laurie’s faults to read as a way to cope with her mother’s absence whenever this intense longing overtakes her. Now, Jill finds that she mostly misses her mother in the mornings.

One morning, Jill wakes up after a night out partying with her new friend, Aimee. Kevin tries to hurry her to school, but Jill ignores him. She asks if there is more news on Holy Wayne’s arrest on sex charges, but the two stop speaking with Aimee enters the kitchen and asks for breakfast. Prior to the rapture and meeting Aimee, Jill was a dedicated student. Now, she finds it hard to care about school or anything else under Aimee’s influence. As Jill and Aimee walk to school, they smoke a joint, and Jill privately reflects that she wants a break from Aimee. After they met while working a summer job at a frozen yogurt store, Aimee took Jill under her wing and essentially moved into the Garveys’ house to escape the stepfather she believes to be attracted to her. Aimee’s alcoholic mother disappeared during the rapture. The girls stop at Dunkin Donuts so that Jill can quickly order, but Aimee purposefully takes her time and makes them late so that Jill will miss her chemistry test. Aimee is also the one who convinced her to shave her head.

After Dunkin Donuts, Jill and Aimee are stopped by the Frost twins, who pull up in their car. The twins have an ambiguous relationship with the school—Jill is sure they graduated, yet they still hang around in the art room—and invite the girls to come back to their house. Aimee agrees and gets in the car. Jill decides to continue on to school. When she arrives, she walks through the empty halls and finds her chemistry class. Inside, her classmates are still taking the test. No one seems to notice her staring in at them. 

Tom lives in San Francisco with two housemates; all three were involved in the Healing Hug Movement. Its leader, Holy Wayne Gilchrest, was arrested. One morning, Christine, Holy Wayne’s fourth “spiritual bride,” arrives on their doorstep, looking for a place to stay. The four watch the news coverage of Holy Wayne’s arrest for rape and underage sex charges, and Christine confides in Tom that she is pregnant with the man’s child.

Just before the rapture, Tom left home for his freshman year of college; he was forced to return home the day after the rapture when the university closed. At home, he spent a lot of time with his family watching the media coverage of the event, “but the media was never able to settle upon a single visual image to evoke the catastrophe” (51), leaving Tom even more confused. He spends most evenings at a dive bar with his high school friends discussing the people who disappeared. One friend tells Tom that Jon Verbecki, a loose acquaintance in elementary school who moved away to New Hampshire, was part of the rapture. Inexplicably, Tom becomes obsessed with Verbecki. He finds old photographs of him from school events when the two were children. He carries one with him, a photo of Verbecki with a sparkler.

Tom’s university reopens for spring session. Though he pledges a fraternity, Tom is too depressed to care about school. He skips classes and doesn’t complete assignments. Tom is mysteriously “haunted by Verbecki, a kid he hadn’t seen for years” (60). Hubbs, a fellow member of the fraternity, confides in Tom that he also has an unhealthy obsession with an acquaintance who disappeared in the rapture. The two agree to attend a talk given by Wayne Gilchrest at a local church.

Gilchrest’s speech focuses on his son, Henry, who was lost in the rapture. Following Henry’s death, he badly wanted another son, but his wife, Tori, previously had a hysterectomy. He explains that he was able to heal the pain his wife felt by giving her a hug. He believes he is a “sponge” for others’ hurts and invites all attending to receive a hug from him. Tom and Hubbs withdraw from college, move in with some of Hubbs’s local friends, and start volunteering for Gilchrest.

As Holy Wayne’s popularity grows, Tom becomes an important member of the Healing Hug Movement. However, he soon sees how fame changed Gilchrest, who acquired six “spiritual brides” that Tori gave him “permission” to wed in the hopes that one will bear him a child believed to be the world’s savior.