Joe College : A Novel

Tom Perrotta

1 The misadventures of Danny, a Yale Junior
After reading Tom Perrotta's "Little Children," an engrossing novel that contained a number of compelling, memorable and flawed characters, I was eager to read another Perrotta novel, and chose "Joe College." Here, Danny, in first person narrative, describes his junior year at Yale, including his wacky suite mates, various students and blue collar employees he works with in the kitchen at the cafeteria, and Polly, who, like Danny, is on the staff of a certain literary magazine. Polly, attractive and intelligent (as all the females at Yale seem to be that Danny crosses paths with) is dating a respected young professor, but expresses interest in having a relationship with Danny, who is completely smitten by her. But wait! Danny comes from a blue collar New Jersey background and he has left behind a girl-friend, Cindy, a big haired secretary, who will not make it easy for Danny to escape her.

A large segment of the book covers Danny's return home for spring break to help his father, recovering from hemorrhoid surgery, on the "Roach Coach" -- a food, beverage and coffee truck serving various factory workers. But wait again! Another lunch truck is trying to squeeze Danny' father and others out of the business by "competing" in an extremely aggressive manner -- think Tony Soprano.

Perrotta can be extremely humorous, and most of his asides about pretentious college students and their various papers and projects are hits rather than misses. I just feel that "Joe College" is really more about musings and reflections than anything else. Danny miraculously gets out of one jam after another, which leads me to believe that Perrotta is really not interested in realism here. Danny, himself, does not seem to grow as a character, or learn anything; for instance in the very last scene, he fools around with a high school girl (a fellow cafeteria worker) who has violent protective brothers, and, with no mention of birth control. Perhaps Perrotta is trying to be ironic, or something else which I really could not discern.

In any event, "Joe College" is not as good as "Little Children." The characters are weakly drawn, and there are no lessons to be learned (other than one should try to be, and get, lucky). On the other hand, "Joe College" is a humorous breezy book that never bores the reader.

2 Compelling Coming-of-Age Tale
The title of this novel would lead one to believe that it's about the life of a student in college, but that's not exactly the case. Sure, part of it takes place at college, but in truth it's more of a coming-of-age story; a young man's attempt to reconcile his working class, suburban upbringing with the wealth and intellectual glamour he discovers at prestigious Yale University. It's a well-told and compelling tale, and, like other Perrotta novels, leaves one with something to think about at its end.

We meet Danny in his junior year as he is finally coming into his own. He's established himself intellectually, he's got new and interesting friends, and he's even a bit of a celebrity in that he's an integral part of a newly-minted literary magazine. It's now been more than two years since he came to school and his home-town ties are slowly disintegrating. But some are more difficult to abandon than others.

His father, for one, owns a lunch truck, or roach coach. In a mid-life change of careers, he's decided to become his own man, to run his own business. But it is stressful work, and damaging to his health. Danny finds that he must spend all his vacation time helping him. Then there is the girl Danny met from his old high school. She's a secretary now, at a run-of-the-mill, small industrial plant. He goes out with her knowing full well that the relationship will never blossom into anything. He is aware he is using her.

Although Danny is doing well, grade-wise, he is painfully aware of all of the shenanigans going on around him, some of which he participates in. A girl has basically moved into his suite with one of his roommates. Other roommates smoke dope. Another spends his time in fascination with assassins of American presidents. Everybody drinks way, way too much. One evening, while cavorting with a female on the campus grounds, he is ridiculed by a student-actor dressed as the "fool" from Shakespeare's King Lear. Is this why our parents spend thousands and thousands of dollars a year? He thinks.

With his background, he is able to view these goings-on through the eyes of the average working-stiff American, and without ever explicitly saying why, finds that he is ashamed. His actions, sometimes reckless, sometimes foolish, seem to indicate a subconscious desire to be punished. This conflict is unresolved by novel's end.

It is unlikely that this novel will ever win a Pulitzer Prize, or even be nominated for one. There is no huge encompassing theme, there are no substantial truths revealed, there is no scathing indictment of society. None of that. It is, however, a tautly told, bright, compelling narrative with characters one would expect to meet in real life.

It is, frankly, the type of thing which present-day aspiring authors should strive for. The average reader is not interested in being dazzled by an author's research or bombarded with symbolic references to Freud, he is interested in being told a good story. If an author does this well enough and often enough, all of those other elements--the ones which make a novel great--will fall into place. Indeed, they did so in Mr. Perrotta's most recent effort, the excellent Little Children. Joe College works because, at the very least, it is a fine example of the art of storytelling.

3 a major disappointment
I read this after reading Perotta's wonderful "Little Children." His humor, his insights, his sharp observations, his affection for his characters - all are there. What is not there is a sense of structure, a center of gravity, a consistent viewpoint or any movement toward character development. These flaws point up how much the author learned in the three years between novels, but his sensibility in this book lies uncomfortably close to grad school moral righteousness and self-congratulation. The main character is rarely very funny and his friends are interchangeable. In some instances, the minor characters are more strongly drawn than the major ones. But keep watching this guy - he may just take the right risks someday.

4 hilarious trip down memory lane
Very funny look back at college life in the early 80's. I went to college a decade later but can still see a lot of myself in the protagonist and his friends. Danny, the main character,comes from a working-class background, which causes him to view Yale with a somewhat different perspective than his well-to-do dormmates. Although he enthusiastically samples this foreign world, he finds he is not able to leave his old life behind so easily. During a vacation, he becomes involved with an old high school classmate, and, largely due to his own passivity, lets the relationship continue after he goes back to school.

The second half of the book takes place during a school break and examines the truth to the statement "you can't go home again" as Danny takes over his father's lunch truck route while he is recuperating from an operation. I won't describe all the messes this young man becomes entangled with, but suffice to say how he finally resolves them is hilarious.

The only thing I disliked about the book was the often almost-maddening passivity of Danny. He seemed to have a knack for getting out of tough spots due to luck, not his own effort. As a result, he did not seem to grow much by the end. However, for a spot-on look at college during the Reagan years, read "Joe College."

5 even funnier than Little Children
Perrotta's a bigshot bestselling author now that he has Little Children (which I loved), but make sure you go back and check out his dead-on look at life for a blue-collar boy who hits it big at Yale (but can't shake his N.J. girlfriend). Funny and charming.

6 Hard to put down
A very quick read, this is definately an amusing escape from reality. Memorable characters and somewhat outlandish situations bring me back to my college days in New England.

7 A Modern Day Cather in the Rye!
I read a review that compared this book to Salinger's character, Holden Caulfield (but yet a little more worldly and experienced). I couldn't agree more. For those of you who loved Salinger's novel, you will enjoy Joe College. An honest and cunningly written novel that takes you back to an age where you "thought" you knew everything. There are very few characters that you want to dislike, and yet despite all of their shortcomings, you completely identity with and end up loving! READ IT!

J. Young

8 My friends and I call it the bible...
Perotta has an amazing gift for creating the anti-hero that all males can identify with. Who hasn't been in Danny's shoes - the uninterested partner in a casual relationship, the frustrated, overworked college student trying to fit in and not fail out, the 20 something year old fascinated by Kerouac, the guy on the verge of getting the perfect girl, the guy returning home from college to friends and family that have become distanced over time? Any Joe College could relate to this book, and every guy should read it...more than one of you will come away from it wondering how Tom Perotta managed to steal your life stories and put them in print.

9 Scarily close to "real" life...
I am from central NJ and am also a junior at Yale. I loved reading this book because I could relate to the descriptions of Danny's life both at school and at home. In fact, many of the scenarios in the novel are eerily similar to ones that I have experienced. Perrotta gets an A+ for verisimilitude. Neither Yale nor Jersey has changed all that much in overall character between 1982 and 2002 - at least not so much that the basic elements of class conflict described in the book would be outdated. Perrotta captures well the struggles facing anyone who goes from life in blue-collar suburbia to life in the hallowed halls of an Ivy League university.

10 Will you bring you back to your college days
Great, funny, entertaining, quick book. Loved it so much I sent a copy to my old college roommate.

11 You Can Almost Smell the '80's!
Joe College is a novel about a guy from Jersey who is a student at Yale in the early '80's. Just from the scenario you know the potential for humor and class conflict is great--and Tom Perrotta (author of Election) doesn't disappoint.

This is a very funny story, made all the funnier for its grounding in reality. While Joe College is not strictly an autobiographical novel, it is worth noting that Perrotta was himself a student at Yale who graduated in the early '80's. IT shows in his writing. The setting is very realistically portrayed--you can almost smell the '80's, with its leather bomber jackets and Reaganite overtones. You find yourself really pulling for Danny as he struggles with Middlemarch and his overpriveleged classmates while still dealing with his world back home, including his father's lunch truck business being overrun by mafioso types, and a big-haired high-hoped girlfriend with only a high school education.

I chuckled a lot while reading this book, but also recognized myself in it. I highly recommend it.

12 ah memories
I thought Joe College was a very entertaining read. It kept me interested the entire way through; and even though I didn't really like the characters or agree with their actions, I still felt close to them. Tom Perotta fleshed out the characters to the point that I felt that I knew them. His depiction of Yale life ranges from dead-on to highly exagerated, but whether or not it is accurate, it is still fun to read.

13 Funny stuff
A funny, interesting tale of the college life at Yale. For me, a high school student, it is nice to read a light-hearted, "real life" description of what college is like, as opposed to everything one hears from teachers, parents, etc. It made me want to be in Matt's (the protagonist's) shoes..except, of course, for smoking pot and eating kimchi. :)

14 "Where have you gone Holden Caulfield ?"
Tom Perrotta's "Joe College" depicts dorm living, cafeteria dining, townie problems and summer job doldrums that surround college life about as honestly as any writer who dared to reveal those experiences to unwitting parents. "Joe College" lives where it happens for the 18-22 year olds today. "Joe College" is the moniker many a male student has been dubbed with during spring breaks and summer vacations working at jobs that pay for books and pocket money by those guys we all know. Perrotta's novel is a humorous and fun to read memoir of one Joe College's experiences at New Haven's Ivy League campus and behind the wheel of his dad's lunch wagon during breaks.

Behind the humor and tongue-in cheek criticism of post secondary education, "Joe College" offers a glimpse into the myriad of issues faced by college students living away from home for the first time. There are the social circles to avoid, parties to attend, high school sweethearts left behind, alcohol and drug issues, relationship and commitment issues and somewhere there are the academic reasons for attending college lurking in the shadows. Perrotta guides the main character Danny, aka Joe College, through situation after situation, sometimes humbled, other times confused.

I enjoyed this book immensely. While it conjured up certain memories better forgotten, it reminded me of a time in life when the day's issues seemed so important, people seemed so energetic and friendships were built so strong that they would last for a lifetime. Buy a copy of Perrotta's novel and then call your old roommate.

15 Danny's Inferno
Tom Perrotta is chronicler of man's troubles akin to a watered-down and American Nick Hornby, and a dialogist with the potential to be as good as Richard Russo. He isn't nearly as good as either of these two fine writers. But that's almost an unfair comparison. Perrotta is good, and despite the fact that "Joe College" is a problematic and flawed book, it's still a pretty gripping and fun read.

Danny is a junior at Yale University, majoring in English and minoring in keeping his awkward social life straight. Spring break is spent manning the lunch truck while his downtrodden father recovers from surgery, staying out of the way of racketeering group of rival lunch truckers, and avoiding Cindy, an ex-girlfriend who doesn't measure up to his highbrow standards.

This would all be pretty banal stuff, except for the fact that Danny is a narrator several years removed from these events. Perrotta only sporadically gives us clues to this fact, unfortunately, but when he does it gives the story that much more power. It becomes, then, the story of an older man looking back with new perspective on his bygone days of innocence. And it is this new perspective that Danny sorely needs. He's smart enough to know when he's doing/done wrong, but only with the benefit of hindsight. One revelation has him reasoning why he hooked up with Cindy in the first place. He notes early on that their first kiss prompted this internal monologue: "My first thought was, This is amazing! My second was, She's a secretary!... it made me pull away in confusion." But later he explains that their relationship existed only because he was "trying to find a little company so [he] wouldn't have to spend [his] nights listening to Judas Priest and watching [porno] movies." If only he could have had this ignoble conclusion while it was happening, he might have saved himself and Cindy a whole lot of anguish.

As the narrator, Danny seems to understand this. At times he appears to be hiding something, whether it's behind a clever joke (of which there are many) or even using a flashback to dig deeper still into his past, the purpose of which is to explain (or cloud) his motivations. On top of this, we never learn his last name. There are several opportunities where it could come out, but Danny stops himself short. Which leads me to believe that he isn't really telling us the whole story. There's obviously something more embarrassing to hear than what we get. Danny is an unreliable narrator, that most-effective of post-modern rhetorical techniques. The irony then is that he, an English major at the height of the post-modern movement, doesn't even realize this. It's a neat trick that Perrotta tries to pull off, but it ultimately falls short.

Okay, now that I've got all that po-mo lit talk out of the way, let me quickly talk about why this book is so much fun.

Perrotta is a no-muss no-fuss writer. His spare, matter-of-fact prose is very inviting, ably masking bigger themes. Also, he's very credible in the way he portrays the way these twentysomethings communicate with each other. A letter Cindy writes to Danny is just so spot-on and so hilarious in the way it perfectly captures the tone of someone with much passion, much to say, but little talent for actually saying (or writing) it. Her overuse of capitalization, exclamation marks, and tangential thoughts remind me a lot of many a letter I received (and, yes I'll admit it, wrote) in my salad days.

Perrotta populates his story with a multitude of characters (I'd say too many at times), each bouncing off Danny for moments, and then disappearing into the background. My favourite of these is Matt, a co-worker of Danny's whose uninhibited personality is always amusing. Perrotta also populates the story with endless references to the time period. Mentions of the Iran hostages ("I didn't learn that Americans were being held captive... until... my history TA made an offhand comment about Ted Koppel's hairdo"), Steely Dan's "Gaucho" album, the rise of Ronald Reagan, and Jodie Foster's Yale tenure (she even has a cameo in one party scene) firmly entrench the book around the turn of the 1980s.

In the end, nothing really horrendous happens to Danny. "Things could be worse," he reminds himself. "I wasn't in jail, I wasn't in the hospital, and I wasn't married. My life was pretty much on track, unchanged by the obstacle course of potential disasters I'd been running for the past several days." Which nearly makes the book an empty exercies. But Danny does manage to learn from these 'disasters', or at least we're lead to believe that he does. I suspect just the act of writing his 'memoirs' (with Perrotta a more than able 'ghost-writer') proves this is true.

16 Tom Perrotta is like a Jumbly Nick Hornby, but good
4 out 5 stars!
Joe College is a really funny book that keeps you interested the whole time. It's about Danny, a guy who runs his dad's "Roach Coach" lunch truck in the summers, and is a avid working student at Yale during the fall. The main flow of the story switches off between his current times in college, and his summer adventures. He get many love flames through out the story, and each one has some sort of problem that he has to encounter. Danny goes through some crazy stuff, but manages to stay sane somehow. This book is very realistic if you are a guy reading it, you can relate many girl problems and events Danny has with his friends that you have with yours. This story is more of a collections of events that happen through out Danny's life more than it is a novel, but its hilarious, and its so easy to relate to. Danny enjoys college life, and obsesses over the use of highlighters in his stories. He reminds himself nightly about how he has to finsish some book, but always says he can just finish it at breakfast. This book would be a great movie. I relate Perrotta to Hornby because I read "High Fidelity," and a little bit of "About a Boy," and the styles, situations and themes are the same. I love both of their writing styles, so i reccomend both. I reccommend this story more towards late teenaged guys, its more of a guy's view on life, and easier to associate.

17 Not his best
When did it become a prerequisite for male contemporary authors to pen narratives with college students as protagonists? Michael Chabon's Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero, and Ethan Canin's For Kings and Planets were all very unbalanced and unoriginal and detracted from their best works. Tom Perrotta's attempt is the most convincing and the least pretentious of the bunch, but it is still not up to par with his short story collection (Bad Haircuts), where for a brief moment, I thought he was Raymond Carver reincarnated. We don't need another Ivy League Bildungsroman with contemporary identity issues and rehashes This Side of Paradise, thank you very much.

18 Enjoy Joe College: Not so much a novel as a series of events
Perotta's _Election_ and the movie it inspired were fascinating and original. _Joe College_ is, at best, mildly entertaining. The first half of the book brings you ever deeper in the life of Danny, a confused Yale Junior. He is conflicted by the discontinuity of his life in New Haven and that of his family and friends in New Jersey.

While the events are interesting, the remainder of the book does not do much to show how Danny grows or matures. Several plot lines are tied up in the conclusion, but one is left with the feeling that the book was simply a list of things that happen to Danny and that there is no underlying theme.

19 You'll laugh out loud, but...
This is a book I truly enjoyed. Let there be no bones about it however that Perrotta almost cheats us out of the best part of the book by wrapping things up a bit too quick at the end. Some other reviewers mention this fault as well, but two days after finishing it, I have come to realize that I feel better about the ending now.

Our hero, if he can be called that, is living a life straddling two drastically different worlds, one where he wears and apron and another where he wears the gown of academia. This dichotomy is further explored in his work study job in the dining hall cleaning dishes where he is able to interact with townies and with whom is probably has as much in common as he does with his Ivy League cohort. How he manages to do this, with friends who clearly do not even see a fence, captures the optimism and work ethic of the working class and flies in the face of entitled aristocrats.

Constantly torn between the two sides in his personal life, social life, and intellectual life, Danny somehow manages to get by and to some degree excels is handling the struggles he faces. In fact I'd argue that he learns one of college's most valuable lessons: How you handle your failures is more important than if you fail. He makes decisions and then comes to find that his actions are not necessary. He pauses for reflection and the author does an excellent job of including silence, tough to do in literature, to show the deliberations in his head. Danny is a character you empathize with, yet don't envy, you root for him, but still expect him to earn his just deserts. We all probably know someone like him and while he's not our best friend, he's still someone we hung out with in college.

Ultimately this book achieves its goal of providing humor and self-awareness without being too didactic. I'm glad I read this book.

20 A fun read with a deeper meaning, if you want it.
This was the first book by Perrotta I a have read. He is an outstanding author with great ideas, a wonderful sense of humor, a great story line, sublime characters, and a wonderful writing style that truly engages the reader.

Tom Perrotta's novel takes us down a road many of us have been. Middle class kids "moving up" in our younger and more innocent and naive times to the "higher echelons" of learning and interplay with completely new types of people; where the high school heirarchy simply no longer applies. It is learning and growing that does. Perrotta's first person narrative handles the task with ease that cannot help but put a smile on the readers face. The story line reminded me a bit of "Inside, Outside" by Herman Wouk, sans the religious implications and multiplying the socio and economic aspects.

This is a very very good book indeed and should be receiving a lot more attention by readers everywhere. You needn't have grown up in NJ to enjoy his writing anymore than you needed to to enjoy Roth's but it sure will add to your pleasure and howling glee if you did!

Buy, read, enjoy and spread the word. This guy is that good.

21 A fun read with a deeper meaning, if you want it.
This was the first book by Perrotta I a have read. He is an outstanding author with great ideas, a wonderful sense of humor, a great story line, sublime characters, and a wonderful writing style that truly engages the reader.

Buy, read, enjoy and spread the word. This guy is that good.

22 engaging, but flawed, college student avoids dilemmas
Quirky, engaging and, at times, enraging, Tom Perrotta's "Joe College" introduces the reader to a collegiate archtype and explores his responses to the knotty, messy problems he creates for himself and he confronts as an outsider at Yale. Redolent with the difficulties of a working-class young man assimilating into, becoming part of, and rebelling against the enormous privileges an Ivy-League education, the novel's protagonist, Danny, emerges as a friendly, but ultimately shallow and disappointing young man. The son of proud, but undereducated working-class parents (Danny's father has recently begun his own lunch-truck business, the "Roach Coach"), Danny alternately masks his intelligence, exploits it to his advantage, and seemingly has an excuse for any action that implicates him in the real world.

Therein lie the frustrations of this remarkably well-written and fast-paced novel. Just at the time Danny seems to be hitting his stride at Yale, having overcome the initial culture shock and academic anxieties, he must come to grips with both a romantic complication and the need to shoulder his father's economic burdens. In both instances, he proves himself capable of both moral thought and resolute action; he also shows himself incapable of follow-through. This moral lassitude condemns Danny to the ranks of second-rate individuals. Indeed, the two people he directly involves in his moral conundrums emerge as more admirable people, yet Perrotta has made them secondary to his protagonist.

In a moving epiphany, Danny seems to have gathered sufficient moral courage to commit himself to his New Jersey girlfriend, Cindy, whom he has impregnated. Faced with the possibility of leaving Yale, Danny resolves to become an adult. "I can do this, I thought. I didn't have to be Joe College...I could just be myself, my father's son, living out my life in the town where I was born...I could accept the world I'd unknowingly volunteered for the night I started a new life in Cindy, learn to be content..." How refreshingly different "Joe College" would have been had the author chosen to permit Danny to live up to his responsibilities.

Instead, Perrotta permits Danny to return to his beloved and beer-bathed Yale, where Danny has come to enjoy the life of academic frivolity, arcane arguements, frustrated sexuality and general dorm idiocy. Readers from less than affluent circumstances will not be enamored with Danny's problems at Yale; even more frustrating is how conveniently he seems to slip through the cracks of accountablity and how easily even his ventures into moral respectability dissolve, awash in a laissez faire attitude. Even a courageous confrontation with a group of thugs (the Lunch Monsters, a mob front bent on monopolizing the lunch trade) is but a one-afternoon stand, sound and fury signifying nothing.

Thus, despite the enormously entertaining descriptions of early '80s life in Yale and the painstaking accurate descriptions of the different world of the Yalies and the "townies," Perrotta's novel lacks the very ingredient which eluded its intent: integrity. Danny symbolically represents the flaws of the novel, its delicious froth but insubstantial core. Read "Joe College" for its atmosphere; little else emerges.

23 Not exactly profund, but a hilarious read
I enjoyed the film version of election and decided to check
out a couple of Mr. Perrotta's books. The Wishbones had some
terrific moments, but was not, in my humble opinion, a great work. It was a fun read. Joe College has more depth and nuance
to it. It nicely a evokes a time, 1982, almost 20 years gone as of this writing. Several critics have mentioned that not much seems to happen to our hero, Danny. I would agree on the surface--and even the end seems a bit unispired at first. But as I look back, I see Perrotta does a fine job capturing feelings of a time. That junior year of college. Those relationships (albeit we all had different circumstances, but parts of them and the feelings ring true). He takes those in a fascinating commentary (again, not that deep, but still interesting) about
class issues, finding yourself, and ultimately, learning to face life. This issue isn't that Danny doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes--he is 20. He is learning by doing and he tells us his tale because he has learned, he has accepted somethings, and grown. While it is not profound, it is consistently entertaining.

24 Not Perrotta's best
I finished reading Joe College and let me tell you, this is another winner from Tom Perrotta.

This is the same guy who wrote Election (made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick), and The Wishbones. To be honest, it wasn't as funny as The Wishbones - a novel that just had me bursting out laughing anywhere I picked it up for a read. It wasn't as intelligent as Election - Election was just a genius piece of satire. But this was still good, fun reading.

It's a snapshot of college life and all guilt that comes with the person you are changing into during these years of your life. I'm not sure I can explain that well enough, and will just hope that some of you will know what I mean. The guilt that you feel over your parents paying, the guilt that comes with drifting away from friends that are less fortunate, the guilt of a messy room, old boyfriends. I'm sad that I've read all I can by this man.

I'm going to keep looking for that short story collection of his and just hope he's got a book coming out sooner than later.

25 Entertaining
The thing that caught my eye about this book at first was the cover--and then when I read about the content inside, I was intrigued. By the time I read the book, I was immersed. I love coming-of-age stories, and I was not disappointed by this one. The book kept my attention, and I loved reading about all Danny's mishaps--from the Lunch Monsters to his pregnant girlfriend to his father and mother, who were great characters. I got a sense that the author had been through some of the experiences himself, which made it all the more readable. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who has been in college or knows someone in college or of college-age. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and was sad to see it end!

26 Not Perrotta's best, but still entertaining enough.
Well, Joe College didn't have the scope, originality, or heartfelt delivery of Bad Haircut, was not as witty and darkly funny as Election, and wasn't as enjoyable and funny as The Wishbones, but it wasn't all bad either.

If you like Perrotta's other work for the joy of the storytelling and nothing more than Joe College will be an easy, enjoyable read. If you want something along the lines of Bad Haircut or Election then re-read those because Joe College isn't breaking any new ground.

Joe College is a humorous look at the college experience through the eyes of an everyman narrator from middle-class New Jersey attending Yale and trying to hold down a budding academic career and a burgeoning sex life. The mentions of Jodie Foster (being as the story is set in the early 80s), Taxi Driver, and the Regan assassination attempt seem to be used more for window dressing - setting the story in an identifiable historical period instead of making some kind of statement.

Danny, while presented with trials and pressures throughout the book, constantly escapes potential entanglements (fatherhood, physical annihalation) and all for what? In the end nothing much, he is still in a situation that may bring bodily harm and constant retribution to him.

For all his experience, intelligence and education Danny doesn't seem to learn that much through the course of the novel, and maybe that is precisely the point, although I personally expect a little more than Mr. Perrotta than 300 pages of storytelling to end up back where we started.

27 You don't have to be from the Garden State...
Ever since Election I became a Tom Perrotta fan. Like the protagonist Danny in Joe College, I am a native of Jersey who also graduated from an Ivy League school in the early 80s. I think that combined with a very entertaining story is why I couldn't put it down and finished it in two days. In retospect it's not a great novel but certainly one worth reading. Joe College is a real period piece, a world of pretension in its very accurate depiction of students in an ivory tower world contrasted with the blue collar grit of Jersey. Now that this once much maligned state is now somewhat in vogue (thanks Sopranos) its fun to read about the very accurate love/hate relation its residents have - I moved to California in '84 which was my first chance to get out but still hold it in high regard. Great story, great characters and definitely poignant at times. Highly recommended but don't expect an unforgettable experience, just a very satisfying one.

28 This One Will Take You Back
Tom Perrotta's Joe College is an enjoyable ride back to the 80s and back to college life. There is nothing deep or earth shattering about this novel, it's just an enjoyable, amusing look at a particular time and place. I personally derived much enjoyment out of this one because I kind of lived that life--leaving New Jersey at age 18 to go out of state to college and returning on breaks to work in the food service industry. Perrotta does an excellent job of capturing that time with a very amusing tale. The "Joe" of Joe College is Danny, a bright young man who goes to Yale and while at home, helps his dad out driving the Roach Coach, a coffee/lunch break on wheels for local office and industrial parks. Over the summer, Danny got together with a woman he went to high school with who stayed in New Jersey. Perrotta wonderfully highlights the tensions between Danny's two worlds and how he deals with them. He's got issues at school and issues at home, all believable, and Danny deals with them probably the way most 21 year olds would. Joe College is a believable and very enjoyable look at life in college and life in New Jersey in the early 80s, sometimes very funny and always amusing.

29 Having this much fun should get you expelled
"Joe College" is my first pass at Tom Perrotta's writing, and I can guarantee that I'll be going back and reading his earlier works. This account of Danny, a working class college student at Yale in the early eighties is both poignant and funny. Perrotta is a brilliant wordsmith, and absorbing character descriptions, situation and anecdotes fly off the page in sequences that are often laugh-out-loud funny. But for all the humor, his tale of Danny's efforts to integrate these two disparate parts of his life - the scholarly world of privilege at Yale, and helping his father out with the lunch truck in suburban New Jersey - is often extremely affecting. Danny's half-hearted romance with home-town-girl Cindy is especially moving, and if Danny does not always conduct himself admirably, he does behave in ways that seem utterly understandable.

My only reservation about "Joe College," and this seems pretty minor in light of its many successes, is that while the novel is big on plot, it is a little slight on narrative. We get lots of scenes of Joe with his college friends, at work in the dining hall, working in his dad's lunch truck, working at the dining hall at school. We see his pathetic romance with Cindy and his more hopeful one with Polly. Oh, yeah - then there is the whole Mafia subplot, which didn't quite work for me. All these different threads come fast and furious, but they never really build toward anything definitive, and the novel doesn't conclude so much as it just sort of ends. Lots of contemporary comic novels suffer because the writer is so busy creating characters and wacky situation that he forgets to emphasize plot as strongly as he might. But "Joe College" is so good that this complaint is more than an afterthought (and not enough to make me dock the book a star). I loved reading every page of it.

30 I absolutely loved this book!
I have been a Tom Perotta fan since first reading his s. story "Bad Haircut." His work is comical yet endearing and my god was Joe College ever a page turner. I had it on spring break w/ me and I couldn't put it down as I developed a love/hate relationship w/ it's protagonist, Danny, a Yale junior in the 1980s. At times I was so infuratiated with Danny, I began complaining about his behavior to my friends, as if I were one of the girls he is playing. I also became frustrated because I knew Danny wasn't truly a bad guy- he just acted like one. In numerous instances he would be thinking things in his head and be well-intentioned but then instead of following through, he would simply hurt the people who cared about him, like Cindy, the girlfriend back home. Yet somehow despite all the disasters Danny lets/gets himself into, things always turn out alright for him and I found myself both happy and disgusted. I think what makes this such a good book is that it did evoke such powerful feelings from me. I highly recommend it for college students and people in the real world alike.

31 "Roach Couch, Yale Student, Lunch Monsters?"
If you wondering what a roach coach has to do with a Yale student, and who or what are Lunch Monsters, well it's all right here for you to find out. I think this is Tom Perrotta's best novel yet, although "Election" is right on its tail. I enjoyed this novel and by the middle of the book I felt like I knew these characters and cared about them. Perrotta really knows how to write about college life. He has everything done to a tee. Danny's life as a Yale junior, his affairs with Cindy and Polly, plus his involvement in his father's business on his school breaks all lead to some very funny, and interesting situations. Whether you like Danny's as a person you'll have to decide for yourself. I thought he was kind of a sad character myself, but a person who seemed to get what he wants in a round about way.

I usually enjoy Tom Perrotta's novels. They have a way of taking you away and are an easy read for a quiet afternoon or evening. I certainly look forward to his next selection.

32 Pales Next to Election
After seeing the sharply witty movie, "Election", I had to read the book it was based on, by Tom Perotta. I loved it. So when I discovered he had just come out with a new book, I snatched it up and was incredibly dissapointed. Whereas the characters in Election, even some of the more farfetched ones, remind me of people in my high school, the characters in Joe College didn't seem quite as real. Perhaps I'm too young to enjoy it, considering I wasn't even alive in 1982, but I still found the book fairly dull, only worth a read for a few amusing moments.

33 Entertaining but ultimately disappoints
Perrotta does a good job of setting up the situation and establishing interesting characters. The story has potential, but when the protaganist faces a major moral dilemma, Perrotta just lets him skate by. I felt there were too many missed opportunities and easy answers to give this book a high rating.

34 Solid and sort of true
The college days came rolling back, although it had only been about three years. Most of the descriptions and antics are still so true today, which makes the backdrop for the book such an interesting nostalgia read for somebody just out of college. Although not Yale.

This was my first Perrotta novel, and though some of the criticism is harsh, I found the narrator somewhat interesting even if a bit unrealistic. How many things can bounce off one person without him even getting the remote hint of responsibility?

People like Danny, the main character, are people you love to hate. He is almost of a reverse-case scenario to the silver-spooned Yalie. He had a working-class upbrining but in the end proved to be as spoiled as they come.

Maybe it was the spite that kept me reading this book and highly entertained at the same time.

35 Not impressive
I was disappointed in this book. I wanted to like it. I looked forward to reading it. But, it was a sharp let down. Even when writing this review, I wanted to give it 3 stars but reluctantly admitted to myself that it only honestly earned 2.

_Joe College_ has its moments but all in all it just meanders about. There are some interesting characters, but they are poorly developed. At first the reader tries desperately to like the protagonist, Dan, but in the end just realizes that this guy is hopeless, pathetic, and morally bankrupt (and not even in a fun way). I kept wishing the book had been written with one of the more interesting dormmates as the lead character. There are amusing bits (highliter madness had me laughing out loud), but more often than not I was just eager to finish plowing through this book so I could get onto better reads.

Perhaps I am missing the purported glories of this book because I am female. (It is very much a male oriented story.) I'll give the benefit of the doubt on this count. But, all in all, I'd say spend your money on a different text. END

36 thoughtful book
although i am but an adolescent and know nothing about college life in the early eighties, i agree with many others in saying that this book was amazingly funny and real. danny reminded me much of holden caulfield in THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, as do many of the other protagonists introduced to me these days. i was happy, though, to discover that danny did not cry as much. this book offered comic relief, a rude awakening for me of a whole new world to come as i grow older, and the reality that some people have lived or even live now. i strongly recommend this book for anyone BEYOND their freshman year in high school.

the story is about danny, who is somewhat a ladies' man. he attends yale university, fortunate enough to be there since his parents are no where near able to afford such a school. during the summers and breaks, he helps his father in the roach coach that he owns. this book follows him as a number of events threaten to tarnish his life. what is really cool about this story is that there is this weird voice that comes and tells him things, but this voice only appears twice or so. what is also very cool is the variety of characters and their own personal relationships that danny somehow knows about.

GOOD BOOK. READ IT.

37 Another small masterpiece
Tom Perrotta is the Bruce Springsteen of modern fiction, or perhaps a cross between Springsteen and the late Laurie Colwin. No grand themes or sweeping family sagas, but living and learning, screwing up and starting over, surviving and moving on. Everything he writes is touching and immediate.

38 Solid Writing
OK, i'm a college student so i thought i'd love this book just because i'd be able to relate to the average college student. and i loved the writing and i loved the story, but i did not love the main character. likeable he was. loveable-nope. he got off so easy for the things he did. in the end, everyone deserved what they got except for the main character. the descrption of college was right on, and the pretentiousness was characteristically ivy with a touch of the universality of the college experience. there were a number of humorous moments. a number of touching moments as well. ultimately, i was satisfied with myself for having read the book. i recommend-it is a fast and enjoyable read.

39 Funny!
After I read Election, I had to read more books by Tom Perrotta. Luckily, he came out with Joe College, and it was wonderful! It was one of the funniest novels I've read in months, and it was bursting with Perrotta's honest writing. Read this book, you won't regret it!

40 "Joe College" Takes Contemporary Writers To School
The last words of Perrotta's new novel still resonate within me the wish that the novel wouldn't end. "Joe College" is a smoothly written, easily approachable novel of a Jersey boy going to school at Yale. Essentially, he belongs to two worlds, but between the ivy league walls of Connecticut and blue collar towns of NJ, which one does he belong more in? Such is the book's engrossing focus, as spoken by the main character. Engrossing and very likeable, with charismatic characters that we've known as close friends, acquaintances or even ourselves. It's entertaining, insightful, and easily engaging to the average reader. Many plot twists, but not TOO many too quickly, so the reader's able to keep up, and stay interested. I dug it, and hope you do, too.

41 Not his best, but still recommended
I agree almost completely with the two reviews which precede this--namely that I didn't think it was as good as the masterly "Wishbones" or "Election", but I'd recommend it anyway. In fact, though I read alot of novels, I have to say that Perotta is one of the very few authors whose new books I will buy just because of who wrote it. His writing style is simple yet elegant, his ear for dialogue excellent, and it is impossible for him to be dull. Yet somehow, it seemed to me as if the whole was slightly less than the sum of the parts. If you haven't read any of his works, I might suggest reading them in the order they were written (starting with The Wishbones), and if you have, Joe College is still enjoyable reading.

42 Not bad...
Perrotta does have a very good writing style. His use of dialogue is very exact and it kept this book moving for me. The plot was of interest to me, though I did not go to college in this era.

I felt a little lost in the latter parts of the book. There seemed to be a central focus in the beginning and, for me, it tapered off considerably. I really wanted more of an interaction, later in the story, between Cindy and the narrator.

43 Where's the Ending?
This is the first book by Perrotta I've read, and three quarters of the way through it, I'm thinking this guy is great. The story was amusing and captures college life at a private school very well. Then the story fell apart. This is a book in need of an ending.

44 Tom greater
After meeting Tom Perotta just last week, I rushed to the nearest book store and picked up this book. As soon as I got home I drop every thing right there on the floor just to read this much anticipated novel, and I couldn't put it down. Any one reading this should defintely order this book. It's funny, to say the least and anyone with a pulse will agree with me.

45 Great Book - But Not Perrotta's Best
I first read about Tom Perrotta in the New York Times Book Review, when "The Wishbones" came out. Rarely have I had such an enjoyable read. As a native of New Jersey who was best man in a classic Northern Jersey, blue collar wedding, Perrotta astounded me with his ability to get his characters, dialog, and plot lines just right. When "Election" came out, I read it in one morning on a beach in Mexico, but once again, felt transported to my teenage days in New Jersey. And finally, I read Perrotta's first book, "Bad Haircut - Stories of the '70's," and found that to be a gem as well.

Which was why I found "Joe College" a disappointment. Perhaps it was a matter of reaching too far, but this novel found the author floundering a bit. While Perrotta still builds likable, yet complicated characters, in this novel he tried to build too much into it, and the result was at times, a muddled picture. I felt there were one or two subplots that could have been cut, which would have allowed the author to spend more time developing the principle characters.

Don't get me wrong - I still recommend this book. Even if it is not Perrotta's best novel, Tom Perrotta at 80% is better than most novelists at 100%. Immediately upon finishing this, I found myself calling a good friend of mine who graduated from Yale in the 80's and told him to buy this book - pronto. And I also loved Perrotta's protagonist's way of balancing not only the two worlds he lived in, that of the traditional ivy-covered walls of Yale, against his blue collar, working class hometown in New Jersey, but also the Yale of his dreams and expectations against the Yale that he actually found. And I also could completely identify with the frustration of the protagonist's love life- the hopes, the let down's, the stops, the starts.

Ultimately, I think "Joe College" will represent another level for Tom Perrotta. This novel was a bit darker, deeper and complicated than his previous ones. Perrotta is growing as a writer, and while this novel may seem like a small set- back, I still wholeheartedly recommend it. As I said, a Perrotta novel that falls slightly short of expectations is still better than most novels out there.

And I can't wait for his next one.

46 A Cad's Self Discovery
Based upon the reviews I had high expectations for this book. The theme is enticing: a lower middle class New Jersey guy's adjustment and transformation at a citadel of America's economic and intellectual elite. The first quarter of the book suggests that it might fulfill the potential of such a plot. However, it meanders and fizzles out, and concludes with a surrealistic ending incompatible with the rest of the novel.

In terms of the broader issues, the protagonist Danny comes across as a callow self centered, albeit good natured, guy who is willing to turn his back as well as step on friends and family rather than let them thwart his chance at escaping blue collar New Jersey after having securing access to America's highest strata at Yale. While he suffers some minor angst over his increasing detachment from his working class origins he increasingly owns, and justifies, an elitist attitude and values as well as distain for the culture of the hoi polli. This sense of meritocratic entitlement and fear of falling manifests itself in a callous, craven, and callow failure to return calls, much less confront his responsibility after impregnating a working class girl (from a social set he didn't risk mingling with in high school) who alleviated his boredom one summer home from college. While seemingly macho in confronting mob muscle attempting to frighten him off his father's lunch business route, the impetus appears more his ego, as he shows a callous disregard for the economic and physical danger this presents his family.

The book is honest, it is frank, unfortunately it is probably very realistic. The protagonist and his self discovery describe a vain man made increasingly unattractive by his quest to secure access to success. Disappointing, the hubris he meets at the end is insufficiently developed. After being delayed throughout the novel, the comeuppance warranted further development.

I can fully appreciate a dark plot and sinister characters. However, I really don't think that Perrotta intended to represent Danny as a cad. However, in reality these may accurately be the type of the characteristics and values acquired by those who secure success by upper movement through academia, where one quickly seeks to distance himself from unrefined origins once receiving access to the "top". The book also, uncomfortably perceptively, recognizes the arrogance of those advancing through academia who feel that while they are entitled to such upward movement, others are not. This novel leads the reader to view the success and values of the meritocracy with a jaundiced eye. However, I don't think that was the author's intent; I think Perrotta wanted to depict the pitfalls which might inexplicably confront a regular working class "good guy" once he earns the access to this rarified strata.

47 Another Winner
as a 22-year-old recent college grad, i've had trouble finding books i really enjoyed and could tear through. the minor exceptions certainly have included books by tom perrotta. i guess this is the perfect book for me--one of my favorite authors writing about a time very familiar to me--but with that said, i really think joe college was terrific. once again, as he did in the wishbones, perrotta comically challenges the reader time and again to stay loyal to the protagonist as danny digs himself deeper and deeper. the characters were real and entertaining, and countless passages worth highlighting. i did enjoy the movie, but i found election to be not as great as perrotta's earlier works. my confidence was definitely more than restored with joe college, and i look forward to perrotta's next product. feel free to give joe college as a gift to anyone between the ages of 20 and 24--they'll thank you for it, believe me.

48 Great book, but not up to Perrotta par
I think I've come to expect too much from Tom Perrotta. After three classic books, I came into Joe College with high expectations. I just didn't feel that Joe College provoked me the same as the others or elicited my emotions like the others. All that aside, it's still a Tom Perrotta book, so I definitely recommend it. He's the man. But if you simply want a taste of Tom Perrotta, go with Election or The Wishbones first.

49 This book brings back memories
Although I am a female and attended college a decade before Danny, this book brought back many of the memories of my college years, including all of the angst, the students' removal from the "real world" that existed off-campus, the bull sessions, and so on.

If you loved "Election" and "The Wishbones", you will like "Joe College". I felt that it lacked the immediacy of Perrotta's earlier books, and I really did not care as much about the characters. Perhaps this is because I did not think that they were as fleshed-out as the characters in his other books.

Despite this, "Joe College" was a worthwhile book to read. Danny's inner monologues are very well done, as is the contrast of his life at Yale with his parents' and Cindy's blue collar lives in New Jersey. The details of college life are very accurate and authentic, pulling the reader right into Danny's on-campus and home life.

50 Disappointing
Joe College, Tom Perrotta's third novel, is his weakest yet. There's no diminution in the facility of the prose, no laziness in his eye for a gag, no betrayal of his New Jersey heritage. But it's hard to avoid the feeling that Perrotta is mining an exhausted seam. After two novels and one book of short stories about New Jersey youth and twentysomethings trying to find their feet in the world, isn't about time he ventured into different territory? One can't help feeling he has chosen the easy option by telling the tale of a working class Jersey boy on his great adventure at Yale. The Nick Hornby comparisons are apposite: both occupy a specific geographical and social territory, and both have suffered a noticeable thinning of invention with their most recent novels. As in 'About A Boy', the characters in Joe College feel like sketches of caricatures of stereotypes. The occasional laser clarity of an observation cannot blind the alert reader to this. Consequently, it's hard to feel as involved with the characters as we did in 'The Wishbones' and 'Election'. Perrotta is a lovely writer, with a facile, pellucid style that enables the reader to slip through 'Joe College' in hours. And you will enjoy it - but one hoped for so much more after the eager wait for the novel to arrive.

51 4 head-crushed bearcans for insider's guide to Yale
1. Identify the more logical sequence: a. "Tom Brown at Oxford", "Zuleika Dobson", "This Side of Paradise", "The Adventures of Dobie Gillis", "Joe College". b. "Animal House", "Dazed and Confused", "The Sure Thing", "Outside Providence", "Joe College".

Well, hey, it's (b). Four head-crushed beercans for Tom Perotta, whose recreation of Yalie life ca. 1979-83 has the light touch of a Nick Hornsby novel. Running through the junior year of a Jersey-born English major, "Joe College" allows themes from (a) to peep through, with the blitheness of a first novel from the Warren Wilson School school. Pencil Dick shares a dorm suite, dates, studies, and on vacations fills in for his dad on the lunch wagon. The series of episodes are strung together with expertise. Characters are quickly drawn, distinguished more slowly; dialogue is believable but entertaining. There's a part in this for Renee Zellweger, once she's done with "Bridget Jones".

52 For Recovering English Majors Everywhere!
A wonderful novel which will satisfy any self-reflective needs for someone who came of age after disco but before the Go Go 80's. Danny, the first person narrator, is a working class Italian American kid from New Jersey who is here moving into his Junior year at Yale. He straddles these worlds with a freshly romantic appreciation for the peculiarities of both. His father drives a lunch truck and Danny helps out during summer and spring breaks and it is on this job that he reconnects with a high school acquaintance Cindy. Their halting relationship (she really loves him) creates the third act complication which follows Danny north to New Haven and his whole other life as a promising English Major and possible leading man for Polly, the social opposite of Cindy. It's not easy to call this book monumental because the events of the book are very personal and sort of soft, but the accretion of detail, and the rhythm and echoes between the characters and their scenes create a wonderful overall effect. Perratta is working with the huge American contradiction of what is earned and what is given and his first-person character is a bridge between a father who has made his income with his back (actually, his butt, but nevermind that) and his own future which will be built with his mind. Perratta mines Yale in the 80's for wonderful scenes of gifted children in the throes of their own amusement. And the thrown-off tone and approach of the storytelling actually conceals a deep and incisive portrait of a generation now taking charge of all of our futures.

A splendid read and highly recommended

53 Another Winner
Six years ago at the Breadloaf Conference, I was introduced to Tom Perrotta through Bad Haircut. With The Wishbones and Election, I became an even bigger fan. Now with Joe College, I'm convinced that Tom Perrotta is one of the funniest and most insightful writers around. For all of us middle-aging men who were too young to be babyboomers and too old to be a part of Generation X, Joe College's Danny perfectly captures the mindset of the unnamed generation. With sly humor and just enough introspection, Perrotta's Danny is the perfect protagonist of the Reagan years, caught between being Joe College and Joe Average. Perrotta has written another winning novel, another winning novel that speaks to all the guys who worked summers in their own Roach Coaches and still found a way to be cool!

54 Change your plans for this evening
Joe College is thoroughly enjoyable and brilliantly written. Tom Perrotta is one of those natural writers who make everything effortless and convincing. He is thoughtful, funny, moving and so much fun to read that I guarantee you'll change your plans for the evening so you can finish this book. The setting is the early 1980's, and the protaganist is a kid from suburban New Jersey who goes to Yale (just as Perrotta did). Anyone would enjoy this novel, and if you went to college during this time the pleasure is even greater. All of Perrotta's books are fantastic--especially The Wishbones, and also Bad Haircut and Election.