The Book of Joe
Jonathan Tropper, 2004
Dell Publishing
338 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385338103
Summary
Right after high school, Joe Goffman left sleepy Bush Falls, Conneticut and never looked back. Then he wrote a novel savaging everything in town, a novel that became a national bestseller and a huge hit movie.
Fifteen years later, Joe is struggling to avoid the sophomore slump with his next novel when he gets a call: his father's had a stroke, so it's back to Bush Falls for the town's most famous pariah. His brother avoids him, his former classmates beat him up, and the members of the book club just hurl their copies of Bush Falls at his house. But with the help of some old friends, Joe discovers that coming home isn't all bad—and that maybe the best things in life are second chances.
Fans of Nick Hornby and Jennifer Weiner will love this book, by turns howlingly funny, fiercely intelligent, and achingly poignant. As evidenced by The Book of Joe's success in both the foreign and movie markets, Jonathan Tropper has created a compelling, incredibly resonant story. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1970
• Where—Riverdale, New York, USA
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in Westchester, New York
Jonathan Tropper is also the author of This is Where I Leave You, How to Talk to a Widower, Everything Changes, and Plan B. He lives with his wife, Elizabeth, and their children in Westchester, New York, where he teaches writing at Manhattanville College.
How To Talk To A Widower, was the 2007 selection for the Richard and Judy Show in the United Kingdom. Everything Changes was a Booksense selection. Three of Tropper's books are currently being adapted into movies. Tropper is also currently working on a television series How to Talk to a Widower which was optioned by Paramount Pictures, and Everything Changes and The Book of Joe are also in development as feature films. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
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.
Publishers Weekly
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 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. —Sheila Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC
Library Journal
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. —John Green
Booklist
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.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Homecoming lies at the heart of the novel. How has this theme played out in your own experience? How prominently does your past shape your current life?
2. The opening sentence of The Book of Joe combines references to sex and death. In what way do these powerful experiences recur together throughout the novel? How does Joe develop an understanding of mortality and sexuality during his adolescence?
3. The 1980s form a colorful backdrop to the novel, especially in terms of pop culture and lyrics. Can time period be considered a character in The Book of Joe? In what other books? If so, how would you define and describe it?
4. The novel's title echoes the biblical Book of Job. Though Joe himself would probably reject that comparison, does he have much in common with Job?
5. What does The Book of Joe indicate about how communities label and treat outsiders? Why were the Cougars the most highly regarded male figures in Bush Falls for so many generations?
6. Joe readily admits that he embellished actual events in writing Bush Falls—after all, that's a fiction writer's prerogative. But his experience parallels the real-life quandaries of many novelists who are criticized when drawing on their own memories to inspire fiction. Was it unethical for Joe to use Bush Falls in the way he did? Why does he have such a hard time replicating the success of Bush Falls with his second novel?
7. What techniques does Jonathan Tropper employ to balance his comedic and somber tones?
8. Discuss the spectrum of parenting offered in The Book of Joe. How does Joe's family compare to that of his friends? What emotional scars do he and his brother bear from their mother's suicide? Is Owen a father figure to Joe, and if so, how would you characterize his "fathering?"
9. Referring to his brother's bar mitzvah, Joe muses that by missing out on his own coming-of-age celebration, he never became a man in the eyes of Judaism. Is Joe in fact any less mature or "less of a man" than his brother?
10. What does Joe's nephew Jared indicate about the way times have changed in Bush Falls, and in American adolescence in general? Why do you think the author gave Jared such a prominent role in the novel?
11. What ultimately caused Sammy's death? Is Coach Dugan's attempt to make amends during Wayne's funeral warranted—and sufficient?
12. When Joe discovers the hardcover copies of his book, along with a movie poster, prominently displayed in his father's room, what message was conveyed between father and son?
13. Discuss the novel's portrayal of second chances. Are Joe and his brother liberated from the pains of their past? What causes Brad's marriage and career to fall on hard times? How will the Goffman family use its second chances?
14. What does Joe's Mercedes signify throughout the novel? How do his feelings about the car reflect the personal changes he undergoes?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
top of page (summary)