Joe College

by Tom Perrotta

Book Overview

For many college students, Spring Break means fun and sun in Florida. For Danny, a Yale junior and the everyman hero of Tom Perrotta's new novel, it means two weeks behind the wheel of the Roach Coach, his father's lunch truck, which plies the parking lots of office parks in central New Jersey. Danny can use the time to make sense of his love life, which is getting pretty complicated.Populated by a vividly drawn cast of characters and set in the highly...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312261845
• ISBN13: 9780312261849
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Another winner from Perrotta

Fans of Perotta won't be disappointed with this novel. Perotta knows his material well (like our main character Danny, Perotta went to Yale, and I suspect he's probably from New Jersey, too), and he creates vivid characters that become a part of the reader's life. Danny is a privileged college student on one hand, but he works his dad's lunch truck and earns his keep in the college cafeteria, too. Readers are in for a glimpse at both ends of the class spectrum as Danny tries to balance his school and his economic background. The plot has been summarized well in other reviews, so there's no need for me to go into it, but suffice it to say that anyone who enjoys good literature will become involved with the characters in this book. Anyone who enjoyed this book will like Perrotta's other works. The Wishbones is most like this novel, but Little Children is my personal favorite (it deals with people about ten years older than those in Joe College and The Wishbones).

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.

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.

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.

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.