"A
beautifully crafted book of enormous heart, humility, wit, honesty
and vulnerability. You want to call your friends at 3:am 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 and Dry
"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
"Witty,
tender, and beautifully written. You really fall in love with
Joe. By the end I wanted to have his babies!" -Sue
Margolis, author of Neurotica and Apocalipstick
"There
is so much to praise in this winner of a book about a loser of
a man that I won't waste my words. Read THE BOOK OF JOE
and you too will laugh and cry (and cringe) as you watch Joe Goffman
return to his hometown to make things right, only to make more
and more of a mess for his family and friends-and more of a loveable
jerk of himself. Like Richard Russo or Michael Chabon at their
best." -Rita Ciresi, author of Pink Slip and Remind Me Again
Why I Married You
Delacorte Press, a division of Bantam Dell.
March 30, 2004.
In a novel at once wickedly funny and achingly poignant,
Jonathan Tropper brings us an unforgettable hero: a young writer named
Joe Goffman, whose sizzling first novel savaged everyone in his Connecticut
hometown, then became a huge hit movie. Of course, Joe never planned on
going home again. Until now.
Joe
Goffman has just learned that his estranged father is in a coma. Now the
thirty-four-year-old author must return to the town and family he turned
his back on seventeen years ago. So with nearly two decades of emotional
baggage packed into the trunk of his shiny new Mercedes, Bush Falls's
most notorious prodigal son is coming home.
Within hours of his arrival, before he can begin making amends to his
family or look up his high school sweetheart, Joe's return ignites a maelstrom
of reaction. Senior citizens throw milk shakes in his face, the book club
members hurl their copies of his novel at his house, and an ex-classmate
turned felon threatens him with bodily harm. And that's just his first
day back.
But
while Bush Falls may be less than thrilled to see Joe, it's becoming clear
that Joe needed to see Bush Falls. As he walks the familiar streets of
his hometown, he revisits the terrible events of his senior year -1986-
a year of passion, betrayal, and catastrophe from which he's never fully
recovered. But after seventeen years of hiding from it, Joe is finally
ready to face his past, and with the help of some old friends, he may
actually learn something, if he manages to survive the homecoming.
A
compelling story about friendship, family, broken hearts, and second chances,
The Book of Joe will resonate in the heart
of anyone who has had a teenage love affair, a childhood secret, or a
past full of regrets.
2004
Bantam Dell
The author and Tom Cavanagh, star of NBC's "Ed",
who recorded the audio version of The Book of Joe.
