E-book
The book of Joe
Record details
- ISBN: 9780440334767 (electronic bk.)
- ISBN: 0440334764 (electronic bk.)
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Physical Description:
electronic resource
remote
1 online resource (338 p.) - Publisher: New York : Delacorte Press, 2004.
Content descriptions
| General Note: | "A Delacorte book"--T.p. verso. |
| Source of Description Note: | Description based on print version record. |
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| Genre: | Psychological fiction. Electronic books. Psychological fiction. Fiction. |
Other Formats and Editions
Electronic resources
- AudioFile Reviews : AudioFile Reviews 2004 October/November
Life is hard, but comedy is harder. Just ask Joe Goffman. His version of small-town Connecticut life made him a bestselling novelist, but the people he wrote about didn't take kindly to his take on the truth. Scott Brick captures the ironic tone, drug-addled vibe, and oversexed characters of Jonathan Tropper's splendid novel. If you grew up in the 1980s, believed Bruce Springsteen was scoring the movie of your life, and can still remember the first girl you really loved, THE BOOK OF JOE is for you. R.O. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine - Booklist Reviews : Booklist Monthly Selections - # 2 March 2004
After vilifying his hometown and its residents in his thinly veiled first novel, Joe Goffman got rich. The book was a hit, as was the movie that followed, but his new Mercedes and swank New York digs can't save him from having to go home again. After his father suffers a stroke, Joe returns to Bush Falls, Connecticut--and to the adolescence he's never really outgrown. With his father comatose, his childhood best friend dying of AIDS, the great love of his life intent on ignoring him, and the entire town furious at him for slandering them in his novel, Joe's got plenty to deal with. But in spite of his hero's serious problems, Tropper keeps Joe's narration self-deprecatingly funny throughout. The plot is sometimes annoyingly predictable and, sure, it gets a bit sappy, but most readers will be too amused by Tropper's fantastically funny dialogue to care. And as Joe struggles to reconcile himself to his past, the novel proves surprisingly poignant, even tender. A first-rate tale of a thirtysomething's belated coming-of-age. ((Reviewed March 15, 2004)) Copyright 2004 Booklist Reviews. - Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews - Audio And Video Online Reviews 1991-2018
Protagonist Joe Goffman writes a best-selling novel that trashes his hometown and reveals his neighbors' dirty secrets. Goffman never intends to come back to his birthplace. However, his father's stroke changes his plans, forcing the author to return and face the ire of the townspeople. Brick's wry reading fits perfectly with Tropper's slick wit and sarcastic commentary. The characters' antics are by turns laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly poignant. Brick is utterly convincing in his portrayal of a thirtysomething writer coming to terms with his past. Copyright 2019 Booklist Reviews. - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2004 April
No place like homeIn his moving, funny and compulsively readable second novel, The Book of Joe, Jonathan Tropper proves that while you can go home again, actually doing so can be colossally upsetting to all involved.
Joe Goffman is a rich one-book novelist living in New York. He gained his wealth and the unmitigated hatred of his small Connecticut hometown by skewering it unmercifully in his best-selling coming-of-age novel. That's fine with Joe, since he hadn't planned on going back, but when his estranged father lapses into a coma, he finds himself heading home to Bush Falls for the first time in 17 years.
Very quickly, Joe learns that small town hospitality doesn't extend to muckraking prodigals. In less than 24 hours, an ex-con former high school classmate wants to brain him with a chair, an elderly woman uses him as a soup bowl and the local book club wakes him by hurling copies of his novel at his father's house.
Petty annoyances aside, Joe also must come to terms with a tragic chain of events that took place during his senior year of high school, mentor his pot-smoking nephew, help a friend wasting away from AIDS, and oh yes, win back the love of his life. Along the way, it becomes apparent that some of the villains of Joe's youth are not quite as bad as they once seemed. Also glaringly obvious is that Joe cannot find the youth he was in the unhappy man he's become.
Tropper leads Joe through a quest for a better self that is wise, honest and often downright hilarious. He erects a story of emotional truth that leaves you with a lump in your throat and a smile on your face.
The newly formed production company of Hollywood über-couple Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt has reportedly optioned the film rights to The Book of Joe, which will likely spike Tropper's popularity. Such an honor would be well deserved, because when it comes to articulating the truth in fiction and writing about grown-ups belatedly becoming adults, Tropper is ahead of the pack.
Ian Schwartz reviews from his home in New York City. Copyright 2004 BookPage Reviews.
- Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2004 January #2
Tropper follows his lightweight Plan B (2000) with a light but solid first-person story of a novelist who hits big money with a Peyton Place-esque outing but feels as beset as Job.Seventeen years after leaving his hometown, Joe Goffman has trashed it in his moneymaker Bush Falls, moved to a fancy apartment on Central Park West in Manhattan, has had endless chicks, and now for six months has taken up a celibacy that leaves him lonely, self-pitying, and sex-starved. His agent lives like a Roman Emperor off Joe's book and film sales but thinks Joe's "postmodern" new novel is beneath him. Joe's sister-in-law Cindy calls to say his father has had a stroke and Joe should come back to Bush Falls, where townsfolk once tried to sue him. He returns as Joe Schmuck, disliked by all: Deputy Sheriff Mouse, ex-con Sean Tallon, and basketball star older brother Brad, among others, while finding himself tearfully still in love with high-school sweetheart Carly, who has a Harvard degree in journalism and edits the local paper. And then there are his old buddies, frenetic Sammy and easygoing Wayne (dying of AIDS). His schizo mother leapt into Bush Falls when Joe was 12, so she's not around to hate him. Will Joe-in his silver Mercedes and having learned nothing from You Can't Go Home Again-reform, grow up, and become a lovable human being? The tone for his homecoming is established through a scene in the local diner: Francine Dugan, the wife of high-school Coach Dugan, whom Joe has maliciously and untruthfully described in his novel as a masturbator in love with the bodies of young boys, dumps a milkshake on his head. It will take death and ashes, not to mention the immolation of his Mercedes, for Joe and virtue to bind and for Joe to find hope in his pursuit of Carly.Some sprinkles of excellence provide pep without lifting the whole.Agent: Simon Lipskar/Writers House Copyright Kirkus 2004 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2003 December #1
Joe may have written a national best seller, but he doesn't get a hero's welcome when he returns home to care for his father: his book excoriated everyone in town. Lots of in-house excitement. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2004 March #2
The residents of Bush Falls, CT, cannot forgive native son Joe Goffman, 34, for writing a best-selling, autobiographical, tell-all novel about their hometown; they recognize themselves in its unflattering and incisive pages. When he receives a call telling him that his father is in a coma, Joe returns home after years in Manhattan to face his demons. Joe grew up smart but not particularly athletic in a family where both his father and his older brother enjoyed stellar careers with the town's revered high school basketball team. This and the sting of his mother's suicide left young Joe isolated until his senior year, when he made two close friends, Sammy and Wayne, and fell in love with Carly. In the marvelously funny and self-deprecating voice of Joe, Tropper (Plan B) fully realizes his characters and tells their stories with poignancy, wit, and charm. This coming-of-age story is a keeper; fans of Tom Perotta and Nick Hornby will enjoy. Highly recommended for most fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/03.]-Sheila Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2003 December #1
After Joe Goffman's Bush Falls becomes a runaway bestseller, he never expects to go back to his small Connecticut hometown and face the outrage generated by the dark secrets his autobiographical novel reveals. But when his father suffers a life-threatening stroke, return the unhappy and unfulfilled Joe does, to meet head-on the antipathy waiting for him. Among the Bush Falls locals hellbent on revenge in this breezy sophomore effort by Tropper (Plan B) are deputy sheriff Mouse and ex-con Sean Tallon, both former members of the high school basketball team, as well as the wife of the basketball coach, who dumps a milk shake on Joe the first day he is back in town. Joe also crosses paths with his resentful older brother, Brad; Lucy, the sexy mother of a high school friend; and Carly, the only woman he ever truly loved. At its best, the novel skillfully illustrates the tenderness and difficulties of first love and friendship, exploring the aftermath of Joe's high school relationships with Carly and pals Sammy and Wayne. Fans of Tom Perrotta's sarcastic humor will appreciate Tropper's evocation of both the allure and hypocrisy of smalltown American life, particularly in drug- and alcohol-fueled episodes involving Joe's 19-year-old nephew, Jared, and a grown-up, AIDS-infected Wayne. Frequent pop culture references, particularly to Bruce Springsteen, help move things along briskly and by novel's end, Joe has learned to appreciate the virtues of Bush Falls and realize he's not perfect himself. Despite its charms, however, this boy-who-won't-grow-up novel relies too heavily on canned lines ("she's taking measurements of my soul through her eyes") and easy melodrama. (Mar. 30) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
