"Tracy never went away. So yes, you can say I'm bringing her back, but the culture kept her in circulation in a way that was really interesting to me, and at times a little alienating. It's like you create a character and, suddenly, she's played brilliantly by Reese Witherspoon, and in a sense, that becomes the public's image of the character — and I love that performance as much as anybody. But then Tracy got picked up by political journalists and by the internet as a kind of shorthand for an overly ambitious woman… In a sense she became a kind of touchstone and a shorthand and sometimes a bit of a stereotype, caricature, whatever."

Tracy Flick Can't Win is the first time Tom Perrotta (Election, Little Children, The Leftovers, Mrs. Fletcher) has revisited a character from one of his bestselling novels, and his timing couldn't be better. Tom joins us on the show to talk about comic (and counterintuitive) openers, why he returned to Tracy's orbit, how our own stories change over time, mental gymnastics, why he doesn't see himself as a satirist, adapting his work for the screen and much more with Poured Over's host, Miwa Messer. Featured Books: Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta Election by Tom Perrotta

Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays).

A full transcript of this episode is available here.