Booklist If
The Big Chill had Gen X angst, you would probably have something
like Plan B. It is the story of five friends from college who are
turning 30 and struggling with what it means to be an adult. Ben,
the narrator, is a frustrated writer and recent divorce; Lindsey,
unemployed and afraid of commitment; Chuck, a doctor and unapologetic
womanizer; and Alison, a lawyer and unrequitedly in love with Ja
ck, a major movie star and cocaine addict. Afraid that Jack has
hit bottom with his drug habit, Ben and his friends decide to help.
Plan A is an intervention, and when that fails, they go to Plan
B--kidnap Jack and hole up in a cabin in the woods until he goes
through withdrawal. Everything goes as planned until Jack escapes.
However, Jack's addiction is just a vehicle for Tropper in this
debut novel to explore the group's personal demons, failings, and
relationships. Moreover, he does it with wit, insight, and a lot
of fun cultural references to the '80s.-Carolyn
Kubisz
Library Journal The
background music is decidedly not Marvin Gaye but the tone is
definitely The Big Chill. Four college friends launch an unusual
reunion in New York City when they kidnap a drug-addicted friend.
The plan, resorted to when Plan A failed, is to get their good
friend and now movie star Jack Shaw to come clean long enough
to get his life back on track. Given that life is not exactly
on track for any of them, it is no surprise when things go awry.
Coming together--and almost falling apart--give each of them a
chance to recapture or let go of dreams and move on. There is
Chuck, comic relief and surgeon-to-be; Alison, bright young lawyer
trapped in unrequited love; Lindsey, former teacher, now queen
of the temps; and Ben, the narrator, a would-be-writer without
a story. Funny, sweet, and sometimes bitter, this first novel
should be a popular read among twentysomethings about to turn
30. Recommended for public libraries.-Jan
Blodgett, Davidson Coll. Lib., NC Copyright 2000 Reed Business
Information, Inc.
Publishers Weekly The title of Tropper's debut novel refers to the
madcap plot at its center, and also to one of the book's primary
themes--that life rarely works according to plan. Nobody knows
this better than Ben, the narrator, who wants to be a novelist,
but finds himself at age 30 stuck in a low-level publishing job
in New York City, on the cusp of a sad and bloodless divorce,
and envious of his closest college friends: Lindsey, the spirited
ex-girlfriend who's always followed her heart; attorney Alison;
surgeon Chuck; and movie star Jack Shaw, who earns $13 million
a picture. But Jack, it turns out, is also a cocaine addict whose
drug-fueled escapades are increasingly finding their way into
the tabloids. When an intervention attempt fails, his friends
turn to Plan B: they kidnap Jack and keep him captive in the Catskills
until he shakes his habit for good. Of course, holding a mega-celebrity
against his will is no simple matter, and complications abound.
Jack turns violent, then vanishes, the local-yokel sheriff's department
starts poking around and soon enough the FBI and the media are
involved. Meanwhile, the remaining friends are forging new bonds
(platonic and otherwise) and confronting encroaching fears of
aging...Tropper keeps the story moving at a brisk pace with crackling
TV dialogue. -Agent, Simon Lipskar.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
LA
Times Book Review
Sunday, February 13, 2000 Turning
30 can be a real bitch, especially if you're Ben. The smart-guy
hero of Jonathan Tropper's comic novel about a clique of NYU alum's
trying to hold themselves together 10 years after graduation.
The closest Ben, an aspiring novelist, has come to literary greatness
is making lists for Esquire magazine (lists of people, clothes,
music), and he compulsively lists the reasons why turning 30 is
so intense. "When Kurt Cobain was my age he'd been dead for
two years." "Soon they'll have to start sending an annual
search party up my rectum to check my colon." But there's
even more cause for panic. Ben has just undergone a divorce, and
Jack, his best college buddy and now a major Hollywood star, has
developed a nasty coke habit and a penchant for punching maitre
d's in the nose. Alison-the responsible Upper West Side lawyer-comes
up with the idea of an intervention to save Jack from his Hollywood
self and soon enough, Lindsey, the directionless beauty whom Ben
has always been in love with, and Chuck the girl-crazy surgeon
whose life is according to Ben, "a beer commercial."
are helping Ben and Alison smuggle their self-destructive pal
up to the Catskills. When the enraged Jack busts out and goes
missing, the police, the FBI and the news media besiege the house,
while Ben and his friends perform small, unexpected interventions
on themselves, coming clean of their own ulterior motives, past
regrets and future dreams. In the end, nothing turns out as planned,
but it all makes sense anyway. To Troppers credit, "PLAN
B" is a bit like life-or at least, like entertainment.-Mark
Rozzo
Denver
Rocky Mountain News
August 20, 2000 ...Tropper
has managed to capture five very distinct voices. The key to the
novel's success is the authentic dialogue as it pulls readers
into the group...When I read McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City
years ago, I realized that McInerney was going to hit big. I had
the same feeling when I read Plan B, and I'll go a step further:
Tropper's a much better writer. The plot may seem far-fetched,
but I raced through the novel, thoroughly intrigued...Hollywodd
will doubtless take a stab at this story, but it's first and foremost
a novel, and a very fine one indeed.-Ed
Halloran
A novel about Friendship, Love, Celebrity, Addiction, Kidnapping
and Turning Thirty.
Turning
thirty was never supposed to be like this.
Ten years ago, Ben, Lindsey, Chuck, Alison, and Jack graduated
from NYU and went out into the world, fresh-faced and full of dreams for
the future. But now Ben's getting a divorce, Lindsey's unemployed, Alison
and Chuck seem stuck in ruts of their own making, and Jack is getting
more publicity for his cocaine addiction than his multimillion-dollar
Hollywood successes.
It
seems that the one thing they've learned since graduation is that nothing
turned out the way they planned it. Suddenly, turning thirty- past the
age their parents were when they were born, older than every current star
athlete or pop music sensation - seems to be both more meaningful and
less than they'd imagined ten years ago.
There's
no time to contemplate this milestone, however; life is intervening, especially
for Jack. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and though the
bold plan the friends devise to save Jack from himself may not be the
best way, once again, going with Plan B seems to be the only choice they
have.
Jonathan
Tropper's wonderful debut novel is about more than friendship, love, celebrity,
addiction, kidnapping or even turning thirty- it's a heartfelt, sharply
written comic riff on what it means to be an adult against your will,
to be single when you thought you'd have a family, to realize nothing
in life happens like you planned it, to discover you are not, in fact,
immortal, and to learn that Star Wars is as good a life lesson today as
it was when you were six years old.
