I Am Charlotte Simmons

By: Tom Wolfe

Narrated by: Dylan Baker

Length: 31 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Dupont University: the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition....Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a sheltered freshman from North Carolina, who has come here on full scholarship. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that for the upper-crust coeds of Dupont, sex, Cool, and kegs trump academic achievement every time.

As Charlotte encounters Dupont's privileged elite, her roommate, Beverly, a fleshy, Groton-educated Brahmin in lusty pursuit of lacrosse players; Jojo Johanssen, the only white starting player on Dupont's god-like basketball team, whose position is threatened by a hotshot black freshman from the projects; the Young Turn of Saint Ray fraternity, Hoyt Thorpe, whose heady sense of entitlement and social domination is clinched by his accidental brawl with a bodyguard for the governor of California; and Adam Geller, one of the Millennial Mutants who run the university's "independent" newspaper and who consider themselves the last bastion of intellectual endeavor on the sex-crazed, jock-obsessed campus, she gains a new, revelatory sense of her own power, that of her difference and of her very innocence, but little does she realize that she will act as a catalyst in all of their lives.

With his signature eye for detail, Tom Wolfe draws on extensive observation of campuses across the country to immortalize college life in the '00s. I Am Charlotte Simmons is the much-anticipated triumph of America's master chronicler.

©2004 Tom Wolfe (P)2004 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC

Critic reviews

• Audie Award Finalist, Fiction (unabridged), 2005

"Like everything Wolfe writes, I Am Charlotte Simmons grabs your interest at the outset and saps the desire to do anything else until you finish." (The New York Times Book Review)
"The book is brilliant, wicked, true, and, like everything Wolfe writes, thematically coherent, cunningly well plotted, and delightfully told." (Atlantic Monthly)

Too many stereotypical characters of color

The narrator's versions of POC characters seemed rooted in minstrel shows of old. Very disappointing.

Coming of Age Archetype

All in all, I listened everyday, even though it was slow at times, even though Hoyt's cunning exploitation was a painful slow motion train wreck. A+ to the author for penetrating realism.....not a single lapse on this score in the whole story, particularly in Charlotte's self-perception.

There was not enough insight into Charlotte's childhood to reveal the roots of her obsession with how she was perceived by others....maybe the point is that -- that is what we are at age 18. Her manner was kind and honest but often self-absorbed. I wasn't expecting this given her wholesome beginning. Perhaps that was the fruit of her miserable loneliness in the first couple of months.

In high school, her security blanket was family and academic excellence. At college, with the family support removed, she learns that excellence alone is not sufficient for a contented life. Even if her roommate had not been a boarding school snob, she still would have needed to contend with the dilemma of finding like-minded friends. The universal college balancing act between sleep, grades. and social life is everyone's struggle.

When I finish a book, my question is "what do I know now that i didn't know before?" The issue that I puzzle over is whether college women are better off or not with casual sex. That's a tough question because it is institutionalized now, and because women don't have homogenous levels of emotional maturity. The term of art "cum dumptster" reveals the persistence of the double standard. The analogous term "f*ck boy" is a feckless attempt to erase some of that standard, but if this book is true, women suffer from slut-shaming still. For a college woman, the price of indiscriminant sex is gossip. As long as she fully grasps that, that is a clear-eyed fully informed decision. Reading between the lines, however, it appears that so called cum dumpsters are judged to have low self respect.
After reading this book, my hunch about the puzzlement is that the answer depends on the woman, but for those not-ready-yet naive souls, their life is more difficult becaue of the prevalence of indiscriminant sex.

The writing is good, and this book is a worthy installment in the canon for the genre. Coming of age stories will continue to be worthwhile because each story is a product of the cultural norms of that moment in time. Choices about sexual activity, establishing one's self-image, moral code, and financial independence will be evolved for each era. This book is an eye-opening update on the journey for college people in the third millenium.

Relevant as of 2022

The performance by Dylan Baker is wonderful. Actually, wonderful doesn’t do it justice. The guy makes every character distinct and at one point sarcastically mocks one character in the voice of another it’s not just the voice of the character being mocked! It’s an amazing performance.

The story is phenomenal and as a senior in college it’s an accurate portrayal of universities today. High school seniors should listen to it before they go.

The portrayal of narcissism in every character to varying degrees is true to life. And the descriptions of slang and language made me laugh out loud.

I laughed, I about cried and I related to every character to some degree. An outstanding work.

A great read/listen

When the book came out I heard all the criticism Tom Wolfe received on TV about how this book was unoriginal. I must say, that half way through it I couldn't wait to get to the end. The reader is really good at doing the voices. Like many books, the last few chapters quickly tie up the stories of the book which was a little of a disappointment, although I really did enjoy this book. There were times that I emotionally felt for the main character. This book is a great insight to college life and informative as I commuted during college. I would have given the book 5 stars if the ending was a little more drawn out.

Funny, Fresh

This novel was pretty funny. It was a great story. Some of the characters seemed a bit overboard, but the writer makes it very believable.

Had to finish it, sorry when it ended

The characters are a bit of a caricature of the college-aged friends of my kids tramping through our house now. I believe the committment to drinking, sex and superficiality is by no means universal, but I do believe this does exist in certain universities out there. While doing college searches for the last 2 years for both our sons we could guess which colleges were more like Mr Wolfe's DuPont by looking at the arrest and crime statistics that the colleges must now post.

Tom Wolfe - America's master of detail.

This book is not so much about the characters or the storyline but rather about the incredible wealth of detail that shape their environs.
If you prefer edited of abridged versions of books this is not for you. Those of us who listened to the book here in Europe found the information on modern U.S. college life to be fascinating - even if a little exaggerated .
The narration by Dylan Baker is excellent and hopefully he will record further works.
A true masterwork and a superb "listen".

Captivating story that loses its way a little bit

Overall, I liked this book and found it was worth its substantial length. Tom is a wonderful writer and he does a great job setting scenes and developing characters.
In reference to him capturing college life, here is my take. If you read the book with no knowledge of who wrote it or their age - you would guess it was a young author recently out of college. It does a very good job capturing some real perspectives of modern college. This is not to say it gets all perspectives - of course it does not. When you then realize a 75 year old man wrote this, the accomplishment is stunning.
Somewhat on that topic, the thing that most distracted me was the author's choice to intermix real and fictional pop culture references. I found this distracting. He switched between real and fictional music artists like Dr. Dis (fake) and Brittney Spears (real). He does this with cars as well.

As far as her innocence - I believed it. This happens - there are a number of first generation college kids that come from very sheltered life's. I ran into more than one in school. I agree it is becoming more rare due to the internet and other technologies, but I found this to be plenty believable.

BELOW might have information you do not want to read if you have not read the book

The book really seems to lose its way in the 4th (of 4) part (the last 7 or so hours). When starting this section, I just found Char's depression to be too hard to believe. I kept saying - shut up - what you did was not that bad - let it go . . . or I was saying - go ahead, kill yourself! I think Wolfe recovers when she comes out of the depression and makes it more believable and real. However, I think the book then goes in to 'wrap up' mode and feels like the end is rushed.

Tom Wolfe explains it all to you

I really enjoyed this book. Like many of Tom Wolfe's books it was both hilarious and depressing, often at the same time. He was very sucessful in letting me experience worlds and subcultures I'd rather avoid in real life.

The narration was brilliant, each voice and accent distinct and perfect. The voices (all by one male narrator) were terrific to listen to and made the book even better than it would have been on the page, more full, round and alive.

I Am Amazed

This is by far one of the most phenomenal satires about the backwards-thinking, retroactive culture that is perpetuated in our higher "education" system.