By Ray Sawhill
Tom Perrotta, the author of “Bad Haircut” and “The Wishbones,” is like an American Nick Hornby: companionable and humane, lighthearted and surprisingly touching. And with his new novel, “Joe College” (St. Martins), he has delivered another sweetheart. Danny, a New Jersey working-class boy at Yale circa 1980, finds himself both enchanted by a schoolmate and dodging calls from a hometown girlfriend. Spring break, and the inevitable crisis, loom.
There may never have been a more unassumingly winning treatment of a young man’s divided loyalties. Danny shares an ease with his old Jersey friends, yet many of them are already going to seed. He values the intellectual rapport he has with his Ivy League chums, yet they’re bafflingly high-strung creatures. And why, these days, does he find himself so often acting like a rat? “I hadn’t been this way before college, I was sure of it,” he reflects. Perrotta has established a slightly befogged comic landscape that’s his alone, though fans of such quirky indie films as “Chasing Amy” and “Dazed and Confused” will feel right at home too.
- Buy a copy of “Joe College.”
- Visit Tom Perrotta’s website.
- Perrotta answers 20 questions from readers.
© 2000 by Newsweek, Inc. Reproduced by permission.
Ray Sawhill 