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)

A compelling listen and accurate depiction

Once again Wolfe is a mirror of American culture and it's not a pretty picture. However, in no way do I doubt the accuracy of the depiction of the setting or its characters. They are believable representations. I read this book 18 years ago and it inspired me to quit my adjunct teaching jobs, because I doubted the value of higher education. Today I am a professor at a top football school and I am surprised by how nuanced and true this story remains. We are perhaps 20 years further into the decadence and decline of our society, yet the story remains relatable in a way that can reflect one's own coming of age experiences. Kudos to the reader performing this tale; you made even the most lurid parts vividly ingestible.

Charlotte Didn't Learn a Dang Thing in College

If you can get past the language in the book (which is unfortunately accurate for today's universities), you get a decent insight to college today. Yes, the characters are over the top representing the extreme of each category (frat boy, jock, vain intellectual, left-wing professor). But the story is well written and riveting.

I thought that it was also well read, with the right ambiance fitting each 'scene' in the book.

In the end though, I was disappointed in Charlotte. She didn't learn a dang thing...

Loved it!

What made the experience of listening to I Am Charlotte Simmons the most enjoyable?

the characters. I loved them all.

Have you listened to any of Dylan Baker’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This is the first time I listen to Dylan Baker, but I loved the way he changes his voice to fit the character.

If you could take any character from I Am Charlotte Simmons out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Charlotte. She is like any 18 year old teenager. With all the insecurities and in the process of learning. She is very smart.

Any additional comments?

I have "read" all 3 books from this author. I like the way he makes us laugh at the human nature.

Save our children!

What did you love best about I Am Charlotte Simmons?

TW depicts the milieu which Millennials must navigate with extreme clarity and accuracy. I cannot think of any previous generations wherein the younger was so poorly served, or callously disregarded by the older. The judgment will be deservedly harsh.

What other book might you compare I Am Charlotte Simmons to and why?

None, really. This book is unique in my experience.

What about Dylan Baker’s performance did you like?

Awesome affection of accents, female voices, and still annunciate clearly.

If you could rename I Am Charlotte Simmons, what would you call it?

Vodka and Sex for Everyone!

Academy award for reader Dylan Baker

If Oscars were given for acting out books, Baker would go home with the golden statue -- he's great. Just great. With so many different people populating this book -- Southern homefolk, Boston elite, Jewish professors, black athletes, little-guy reporters -- it was nothing short of fascinating to realize how much you learned about each character from just listening to them speak -- through Baker, of course. Very well done.

That said, this was one of the few books I've ever encountered that shoulda been shorter, by about a third. We are treated to three separate episodes of play-by-play basketball, which maybe some sports nuts loved, but got intensly boring after just a few minutes. And some of the love -- make that sex -- scenes were disgusting and way overdone, even though one has to suppose that writing these sex and sport scenes must have been great fun for Wolfe. If I'd been reading the book, I would have skipped ahead, but with an audio book, you have no way of knowing how long it's going to continue.

None of this should deter you from experiencing this book, in one format or another. "Charlotte" is a very very good book, and one that surely will cause some heartburn among the denizens of the hallowed halls of ivy. It's surely one of those situations in which a book of fiction will bring about more reform, long run, than a dry, academic critique ever could.

Read it, or listen to it, but don't miss "I Am Charlotte Simmons".

best audible so far

great book and narrator was fabulous. would not have been as good if i had read it.

Excellent reading of a good book

The plot, as Tom Wolfe plots go, is good and not too outrageous, although I have to point out that Republican politicians don't ever have oral sex since it's sinful. The character development, well, that's good too---typically humorous and sharp. Language, excellent as always; there are two very amusing sections on the myriad use of two unprintable words.

But what this book does beyond all others is capture the undergraduate life with unflinching accuracy, at least from the point of view of frats and sororities. The mock screaming, the fawning, the groping, the unforgivably awkward geekiness, the sick pleasure of unimportant but nasty gossip, the unrestrained and misdirected lust of children just released from their parents' supervision, the ultra-low-cut pants that display the rear declivity for all to see, the fanny wagging. These are just a few of the ways that college girls have learned to debase themselves and we, the readers, are invited to eavesdrop on the whole prurient affair. Sure, sure, not every college student behaves this badly or with such a powerful self-destructive urge, but it is satire after all.

All of the images flow past in one amusing juxtaposition after another, aided by Dylan Baker's fantastic portrayal of a teenager's brain. His reenactment of an overwrought and melodramatic Charlotte Simmons is particularly awe-inspiring. And his sound effects aren't---rrrhhhaaaa-static rrrrhhaaaaa-static---bad either.

Making It Believable

Years ago, when I was taking writing courses, my teacher told us, "You don't have to make it real. You have to make it believable." Nobody makes it believable better than Tom Wolfe.

"I Am Charlotte Simmons" is the story of a naive, idealistic young woman from the Alleghany Mountains who arrives at a prestigious university seeking an education that will lead her to a "life of the mind." Instead she gets an education in snobbishness, the corruption of university life and her own corruptibility.

In telling the story, Wolfe takes us inside freshman dorms, athletic offices, frat houses, the school newspaper with a verisimilitude and attention to detail that are simply breathtaking. His explanations of the several patois of college students are hilarious and vibrate with truth. His insight into the mind games played by two power forwards during a basketball game is amazing. Most stunning of all was his lengthy narration of Charlotte's drunken thought processes as she loses her virginity.

I must admit it's been several decades since I graduated from University, but I had no trouble believing any of it. In fact, my problem with the book was that it was too believable. The characters were so credible because they were so flawed. I would have liked a character who was incorruptible, someone with character and courage. Someone I could cheer for. But, I guess that was Mr. Wolfe's point: That education, academic and otherwise, must of necessity rob us of our innocence.

If you are offended by vulgar language or graphic sex, stay away. But if you are not, you may find "I Am Charlotte Simmons" a fascinating education.

Totally engrossing

Opens the door to the world that otherwise would be largely unknown.
Well researched. Whether he describes sexual tension, peer pressure,
college caste system based on coolness Wolfe gives us a great vicarious experience.
The narrator has done an amazing job.

I Am Charlotte Simmons

This is an intelligent, witty and often painful account of the coming of age of a naive girl entering college. On a grander scale it speaks to the decaying of the American university scene.