The Book of Joe

A Novel

By: Jonathan Tropper

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Right after high school, Joe Goffman left sleepy Bush Falls, Connecticut, and never looked back. Then he wrote a novel savaging everything in town, a novel that became a national best seller 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 howling 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.

©2004 Jonathan Tropper (P)2004 Books on Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A beautifully crafted book of enormous heart, humility, wit, honesty, and vulnerability. You want to call your friends at 3 a.m. and read whole passages out loud. You want to press it into the hands of strangers. You cannot stop thinking about it because it has rearranged your very molecules. You know that kind of book? This is that kind of book. The Book of Joe is utterly magnificent. I wish I'd written it myself. "(Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors)

"The Book of Joe is an elegiac, wickedly observant look at a small town and its secrets. In Jonathan Tropper's highly readable novel, the problem isn't that you can't go home again, it's that eventually you have to, whether you like it or not." (Tom Perrotta, author of Election and Joe College)

"[Tropper] does it with wit, insight, and a lot of fun cultural references." (Booklist)

Loved this book

Every once in a while I come across a book I wish I had written. This is one of those books. The story is so engaging; the characters are memorable and the writing is just plain great. Add to that the great narration- this is a winner.I recommended this book to several of my friends, all of whom agreed with me. Lest you think this is a "guy's" book or the male version of "chick-lit", let me add that I am female and 20 years older than the characters in the book. I subsequently listened to "Everything Changes" also great. And read Plan B, Tropper's first book. I am just delighted to find such a fresh new talent at the beginning of his writing career and hope there are many more novels in his future.

Real-life Family Situations

Jonathon Tropper is one of my new favorite authors. I plan to either read or listen to everything that he has written. This story was a wonderful slice of life book with complex familial relationships and coming of age issues. Funny, sexy and true. I really enjoyed it. Scott Brick has a rich voice - Reminded me of Kelsey Grammer without all the b.s.

Wonderful!

It took a bit of time to get into it, but once in, I couldn't wait to continue. Tropper uses such beautiful language, and the narration made it sound even better.

One of My Favorite Books

The way Joe was read was absolutly perfect. I can't stand the end of a good book and wished I could have followed him back to NY!

Fun, great plot, well presented

I LOVED this audiobook and have listened to it many times. Well reminiscent for those of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s, with Springsteen references an added bonus -- and for those of us still trying to "grow up" in various ways. The storyline, however, is reflective of things still going on today and still very pertinent. Very well presented, also. Did not find it shallow as suggested by a previous reviewer, although can see where that idea might grab one --but this is a character who is trying to be shallow to aid living in denial, but just can't carry it off because the truth keeps staring him down. Great on all points.

Witty, but a little depressing

The author has such a distinct way of writing that really shows his wit & ability to characterize what so many of us think on an everyday basis. I really enjoyed the "connection" this gives to Joe. However, the story itself is pretty dark. Even though there are great lessons to be learned as he makes his way through this journey~ the topic itself was too much of a downer for me to thoroughly enjoy the book. I also found it annoying that a lot of the story was about him writing a story as an author. After awhile it made me feel "stupid" for connecting to this character. After all this is only a book that was written & it made me too conscious of this is all just made up to begin with.

Enjoyed it but not perfect

First, I did enjoy this story of a man's journey back in time. I've made my own though after longer than this writer's 17 years. I had some similar experiences and very similar feelings. So, I'd say the writing is genuine.

The story is a little fumbled and the characters somewhat shallow and very predictable. Not all the idiots from high school remain idiots and some of the "good ones" become idiots. The author misses this and all his characters are simply magnifications of their high school personae. It would have been interesting to have a character really surprise. I won't speculate here because I don't want to taint your read.

There's a bit to bit to be learned from this book. And, the writing is touching and entertaining for the most part. I'm not a fan of Scott Brick's cadence of speech. Sometimes it's great---when characters interact---sometimes too droll during long frames of narration. But that's a taste thing.

Overall, yes, spend a credit.

Chris Reich
TeachU

Only get the unabridged!

If you are offended by naughty language, hot sex or real people with real pain, this isn't the book for you. But for the rest of us, this is one of the best books of all time. However, it is very important to get the unabridged version. I have heard both and the unabridged beats the abridged every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Wonderful read! Don't pass it by!

Couldn't put it down--characters you care about--beautifully written--hilarious and sad. It is at the top of my list of reccommended books.

The Prodigal Sonny Returns

I discovered Jonathan Tropper through This Is Where I Leave You (before the movie) and faithfully moved along with his follow-up, One Last Thing Before I Go. I then went back and read his entire back catalog in print, listening to many of them in audio as well.

His second novel, The Book of Joe, is the real gem, establishing JT's formula of a relationship-challenged self-effacing protagonist going back to his roots to face his sick, dying, or dead father, rival brother, and long-ago first love, along with various and sundry other characters. All to great comic effect.

What sets The Book of Joe apart is its framing device: Joe left home and became a literary success after writing a thinly-veiled autobiographical novel about his hometown, and now he has to come back to face all the people he wrote about, which was not necessarily flattering to them. The results are hilarious, the stage-setter for Tropper's series of light comic novels -- the opposite of JT's dark and violent Cinemax series Banshee.

The book is very much like its successors, JT's next four novels being riffs on similar topics, although his protagonists age along with the author, going from young single men to married men to divorced men. But the title asks us to compare this story to the biblical Book of Job, as well as the parable of the prodigal son, Joe leaving home and returning like the latter, and suffering tests of faith like the former.

Scott Brick is one of the most prolific audiobook narrators. This was my first experience with him, so I was OK with it. I would later come to dread seeing his name as narrator of a title I really wanted to listen to. I have literally chosen not to get books he narrates. The only reasonable way to listen to him is to crank the speed up to 1.5x or even 2.0x speed.

Sadly, Tropper has stopped writing novels and turned his attention to writing and producing for TV, eschewing the comic style he was so good at for crime drama. There is no shortage of dysfunctional family rom-com novels nor of violent sadistic crime shows, but Tropper was exceptional at the former, pedestrian with the latter, so it's a shame to see him abandon what he was so good at. Write what you know -- he obviously has life experience with failed families, he has no life experience with Amish, Russian, Chinatown, or Micronesian organized crime, so go back to family comedy, JT (like Kodachrome, but funnier).