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332nd out of 2,998 books
—
2,363 voters
The Book of Joe
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 bestseller 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 f...more
Paperback, 338 pages
Published
March 29th 2005
by Bantam
(first published July 17th 2003)
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A psychiatrist friend once told me that the psyche knows no greater pain than shame, that shame is so painful that, within a nanosecond, it is experienced as anger.
The word "angry" clearly falls short of capturing the intensity of feelings about Jonathan Tropper's Joe Goffman, who had the chutzpah to make the name of his hometown the title of a novel -- one that would become a best-selling book and then a movie. The fact that the work is fiction does not diminish the embarrassment felt by the...more
A psychiatrist friend once told me that the psyche knows no greater pain than shame, that shame is so painful that, within a nanosecond, it is experienced as anger.
The word "angry" clearly falls short of capturing the intensity of feelings about Jonathan Tropper's Joe Goffman, who had the chutzpah to make the name of his hometown the title of a novel -- one that would become a best-selling book and then a movie. The fact that the work is fiction does not diminish the embarrassment felt by the...more
8 likes · like · see review
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BEWARE: This book was originally published under the title of Bush Falls.
He's a prodigy of alienation. Now a successful writer, having written a book about his home town, Bush Falls, that savaged the place, Joe receives a call from his sister-in-law that his father has had a stroke (he was at the top of the key, had just released the ball, and came down unconscious. Basketball aficionados present noted the ball swished.) Joe's brother, Brad, ex-sports star, and their father never had much time f...more
He's a prodigy of alienation. Now a successful writer, having written a book about his home town, Bush Falls, that savaged the place, Joe receives a call from his sister-in-law that his father has had a stroke (he was at the top of the key, had just released the ball, and came down unconscious. Basketball aficionados present noted the ball swished.) Joe's brother, Brad, ex-sports star, and their father never had much time f...more
An absolutely incredible book. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think. I read a lot of books, but I rarely respond to them like I did to this. Upon finishing it, I immediately called several of my friends and told them to go get it RIGHT NOW, because it felt like Tropper was writing exactly what we had been through. Tropper writes as though he is in the minds of his readers: you can feel the love, hatred, hurt, joy, confusion. The story might not always be fantastic, but his ability...more
10 likes · like · see review
Jonathan Tropper's The Book of Joe reminds me a lot of Michael Chabon's early work stirred up with a bit of Nick Hornby. Echoing so much of two of my favorite contemporary male authors, it's no surprise that, by the end, I really fell in love with this book and can't wait to read more from the author who wrote it.
Joe Goffman is a lapsed Jew from a small town in Connecticut. After leaving home as a bitter and estranged teenager, he wrote a scathing (and bestselling) novel about his experiences gr...more
Joe Goffman is a lapsed Jew from a small town in Connecticut. After leaving home as a bitter and estranged teenager, he wrote a scathing (and bestselling) novel about his experiences gr...more
Nov 21, 2007
treehugger
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
small town new englanders, people who like to overexamine relationships
Shelves:
popular_lit,
audiobooks
So, I really, really enjoyed this book. It's about a man who, upon realizing he is inhabiting an empty, souless life and hearing about his estranged father's life-threatening stroke, returns to his small hometown in Connecticut. There are some really predictable things that happen from here, but the study of human relationships, the resiliency of the human heart, and final note of home on which the novel ends really did it for me. There was big emotion packed into this book, and it dealt with so...more
Really good book.
After a horrible senior year in high school, Joe moves away from his home town. Once Joe is on his own he rights a sort of tell all book about his home town, and his home town is not happy. Actually, a lot of people hate him in his home town. His mother passes away, but his father, brother, high school sweet heart, and his old best friend are home waiting for him when he returns.
I read somewhere that this book is being made into a movie. I have never seen the T.V. show, but Octo...more
After a horrible senior year in high school, Joe moves away from his home town. Once Joe is on his own he rights a sort of tell all book about his home town, and his home town is not happy. Actually, a lot of people hate him in his home town. His mother passes away, but his father, brother, high school sweet heart, and his old best friend are home waiting for him when he returns.
I read somewhere that this book is being made into a movie. I have never seen the T.V. show, but Octo...more
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I've been reading a lot of YA/NA novels lately so I decided to go for an adult one this day. So I picked this up. Little did I know that it was like a YA/NA novel inside an adult novel.
I like Jonathan Tropper's This Is Where I Leave You. Despite its many vulgar words, it's a good one. Yes, many vulgar words, sexual content. A lot of profanities. So I wasn't surprised when The Book of Joe also contains those things. Honestly speaking, I found a LOT of similarities between the two.
But the thing...more
I like Jonathan Tropper's This Is Where I Leave You. Despite its many vulgar words, it's a good one. Yes, many vulgar words, sexual content. A lot of profanities. So I wasn't surprised when The Book of Joe also contains those things. Honestly speaking, I found a LOT of similarities between the two.
But the thing...more
The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper is quite good. When I finished it, I knew I would try others by him. How can you have a coming of age story when most of the main characters are in their 30s? Yet that is what you have.
Coming of age, a transformation, a maturing; yes that was it. The characters start out somewhat two-dimensionally but morph into fully fleshed out characters. There are some aspects of the plot, foreshadowing, that are predictable. But even in those moments they aren't entirely...more
Coming of age, a transformation, a maturing; yes that was it. The characters start out somewhat two-dimensionally but morph into fully fleshed out characters. There are some aspects of the plot, foreshadowing, that are predictable. But even in those moments they aren't entirely...more
Meh. It's not that this is a bad book, really (uh oh, here comes the faint praise), there just isn't much to it. I don't much care about Joe and his struggles, truth be told. There are story elements that should cause me to care, should somehow induce caring in me, so I can only think this is a failure of authorship.
The plot line is easy to describe: 14 years ago Joe wrote a novel about his hometown, Bush Falls, which he called, none too cleverly, Bush Falls. The characters were very thinly veil...more
The plot line is easy to describe: 14 years ago Joe wrote a novel about his hometown, Bush Falls, which he called, none too cleverly, Bush Falls. The characters were very thinly veil...more
It's a novel about a guy (that would be Joe) who's written a best-selling autobiographical novel which has been made into a hit movie (Leonardo di Caprio is mentioned as the star) and pissed off everyone in the narrator's small home town. Despite his early success, our hero is now cooling his heels in the Big City, unable to forget the Girl That Got Away and definitely not making progress on his expected new novel. Then Dad gets sick and Joe has to go home and face all his old demons, including...more
Brief Description: Joe Goffman left his small Connecticut town of Bush Falls after high school and never went back—except in his creative life when he wrote a novel called Bush Falls that is a thinly disguised account of his life growing up in the town. The book was a bestseller and was made into a movie. It also pissed off a lot of people in Bush Falls who didn’t appreciate the way that Joe depicted them. Now Joe’s father is on his death bed, and Joe must return to the Bush Falls and face the c...more
Jonathan Tropper is my new favorite author. I have also read "This is Where I Leave You" and I thought it was outstanding and "The Book of Joe" is even better. It is basically a coming of age story of a 34 year old man. Tropper really does a good job of writing stories that seem true to the male psyche. I have read a lot of reviews on this book and they are almost all positive, but they miss the biggest point of the book. It is a hilarious book with some heart breaking moments that will lead you...more
Jonathan Tropper’s ability to make you feel like his best friend is what makes his books so enjoyable. His writing is easy, believable and natural.
The protagonist Joe Goffman had a difficult time in high school. He was seen as a loser and his friends were no better. There were three important people in his life back then, Carly, the girl he loved, Wayne and Sammy, his two best friends who went through their own hell. Joe’s tumultuous high school years left him angry and bitter.
After high school,...more
The protagonist Joe Goffman had a difficult time in high school. He was seen as a loser and his friends were no better. There were three important people in his life back then, Carly, the girl he loved, Wayne and Sammy, his two best friends who went through their own hell. Joe’s tumultuous high school years left him angry and bitter.
After high school,...more
I truly enjoyed this fast-paced, big-hearted, sharp-witted, heartbreaking belated coming-of-age story by Jonathan Tropper. It was so enjoyable and uplifting that it made me rush out to get How to Talk to a Widower (Bantam Discovery) which I'm equally enjoying right now.
This is what made this book so enjoyable to me:
1. Easy/Fast Read - The narrator speaks in a familiar, sharp-witted voice that makes it so easy to sail through his prose. I found myself relate to the protagonist's personality and...more
This is what made this book so enjoyable to me:
1. Easy/Fast Read - The narrator speaks in a familiar, sharp-witted voice that makes it so easy to sail through his prose. I found myself relate to the protagonist's personality and...more
1 like · like · see review
Ahhhh.....another Jonathan Tropper book. After reading'This is where I leave you' then 'How to talk to a widower' this was like going back in writer development time. I can tell that he had not found his voice yet, however, through the cynical and jeering thoughts and comments of the wise cracking and wise beyond his years nephew, Jared and the once in a while wise cracking after thought of the main character, I could tell that the comfort of implementing this persona was just stating to manifes...more
I wanted to like this book. I had every reason to -- not only was it the only book I had with me on vacation, but it had been recommended by someone whose opinions I trust and the author had been compared to Michael Chabon and Richard Russo, writers I love. But no matter how much I tried, I could not ignore the absolute awfulness of the writing. Tropper piles on adjectives randomly, giving ridiculously elaborate and yet banal descriptions of mundane things like drinking a soda ("long, thirsty si...more
10 likes · like · see review
Joe Goffman est devenu un écrivain célèbre. Bush Falls, son premier roman a fait un tabac et est en passe d'être adapté au cinéma. Joe mène d'ailleurs la "grande vie" à Manhattan. Bush Falls, c'est aussi la région où Joe a grandi et qu'il a quittée il y a 17 ans. Bush Falls ne semble pas lui manquer et il ne manque pas à Bush Falls. Son récit en a blessé plus d'un là-bas. Réalité sensiblement modifiée, fiction inspirée de faits réels, les lecteurs Bush fallsois sont tombés de haut.
Mais cette nui...more
Mais cette nui...more
So the story is this:
Smartass non-athlete kid grows up in a shitty sports town, moves away at 18 and writes a book savaging everyone he grew up with. After 15 years, the now-successful writer has to return to town because his father (who he hated) is sick.
There's potential there. Despite being a blatant rip-off of Elizabethtown (maybe not the best thing to swipe from, BTW), this could work if one could avoid all the typical 'prodigal son' cliches. Such as:
Former jock turns out to be gay.
Former a...more
Smartass non-athlete kid grows up in a shitty sports town, moves away at 18 and writes a book savaging everyone he grew up with. After 15 years, the now-successful writer has to return to town because his father (who he hated) is sick.
There's potential there. Despite being a blatant rip-off of Elizabethtown (maybe not the best thing to swipe from, BTW), this could work if one could avoid all the typical 'prodigal son' cliches. Such as:
Former jock turns out to be gay.
Former a...more
NOTE: Reading over this review it sounds like I didn't like the book, which I did. I guess I just felt like complaining.
It's about a white middle-class guy who has issues. Yes, there are a million of these out there. Yes, it's a product of a culture that is obsessed with the well-off and whiny. It was well done though, so I don't have much reason to complain. Oh, one reason, but I can't tell you because it is plot-integral dammit.
The basic gist is that this guy, Joe, moved away from home and wr...more
It's about a white middle-class guy who has issues. Yes, there are a million of these out there. Yes, it's a product of a culture that is obsessed with the well-off and whiny. It was well done though, so I don't have much reason to complain. Oh, one reason, but I can't tell you because it is plot-integral dammit.
The basic gist is that this guy, Joe, moved away from home and wr...more
“A thirty-something’s belated coming of age.” I was interested in this voice of Troppper’s: a male perspective on life, near my age, going home again. I can see it as a movie. In fact, I think all of his books are movies, and I think they will be entertaining if not exactly the same movie: lonely successful man has sophisticated, urban worthless life and finds redemption in his past or in his only genuine relationships. There is always a past tragedy that defines his hero, in this case, the suic...more
I participated in the BOTNS Secret Santa game last December, and this is one of the books I got from my elf (aka Lil). This was one of her fave books for the year, and I can see why. I was hooked the moment I started reading it.
So imagine that you are a teenage boy growing up in small town America, and not only do you have no friends, let alone a way to get laid, but your mother kills herself, and you cannot find common ground with your father or older brother. Your final year of high school th...more
So imagine that you are a teenage boy growing up in small town America, and not only do you have no friends, let alone a way to get laid, but your mother kills herself, and you cannot find common ground with your father or older brother. Your final year of high school th...more
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In the 'Dark Knight Rises', villain Bane gives the people of Gotham hope before ultimately planning to kill them anyway. Jonathan Tropper does the same thing to his readers.
The narrative jumps from promising and engaging to banal and cliched. I began reading the book with high hopes; the story developed well and the characters, while unbelievable, were the right blend of likable and unlikable. The biggest problem with this novel is that Tropper seems to believe his readers are unfamiliar with ps...more
The narrative jumps from promising and engaging to banal and cliched. I began reading the book with high hopes; the story developed well and the characters, while unbelievable, were the right blend of likable and unlikable. The biggest problem with this novel is that Tropper seems to believe his readers are unfamiliar with ps...more
Right after high school, Joe Goffman left sleepy Bush Falls, Conneticut and never looked back. Then he wrote a novel savaging everything in town, a novel that became a national bestseller 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...more
I really enjoyed This Is Where I Leave You despite its at times-overbearing resemblance to a feelgood independent script aiming to be Oscarbait, so I decided to check out Jonathan Tropper's back catalogue.
The Book of Joe is very similar - awash in cinematic cliches such as the estranged son returning home due to illness in the family, reacquainting with an old girlfriend he never got over, etc etc. It actually pulled together in TIWILY, but not here.
I think what annoyed me the most was the use o...more
The Book of Joe is very similar - awash in cinematic cliches such as the estranged son returning home due to illness in the family, reacquainting with an old girlfriend he never got over, etc etc. It actually pulled together in TIWILY, but not here.
I think what annoyed me the most was the use o...more
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I had wanted to read this book for some time. I finally got my hands on it and already loving Mr. Tropper's current book that is out, This Is Where I Leave You, I am even more in love with his writing.
His characters are full of life and leap off the pages. They stay with you even after you've closed the book. Sounds corny I know but it's true. He writes as one who may have the big screen in mind as he tells his story and that only adds to the character and charm of the whole package.
The Book of...more
His characters are full of life and leap off the pages. They stay with you even after you've closed the book. Sounds corny I know but it's true. He writes as one who may have the big screen in mind as he tells his story and that only adds to the character and charm of the whole package.
The Book of...more
Feb 14, 2012
Michael Jenkins
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
EVERYONE!
Joe Goffman thought that he left the past behind, but when an unexpected call from his agent informs him that his father had a stroke, he returns home to a place that he left seventeen years ago. He does not have a warm welcome by the local residents in his small Connecticut hometown, they threaten his life and would not let him forget about the pain that he caused them. Years before, he wrote a bestselling book titled "Bush Falls" which was fiction but it bears resemblance to his friends and fa...more
This book is highly readable but not very original. I haven't seen Elizabethtown by Cameron Crowe, but I think it's basically the same story. Rich guy goes back to his small quirky hometown to reconnect with his family at somebody's death bed. Finds love. Puts his past to rest.
Though it was pleasant enough and had some genuinely snappy dialogue in the last couple chapters, I have a few bones to pick with it:
1. The AIDS storyline. It's a cliche and not a very modern one. It's had a couple decades...more
Though it was pleasant enough and had some genuinely snappy dialogue in the last couple chapters, I have a few bones to pick with it:
1. The AIDS storyline. It's a cliche and not a very modern one. It's had a couple decades...more
The Book of Joe brilliantly captures human nature and our ability to make mistakes whilst moving forward. We run from our mistakes, burying our failings underneath a mass of distraction because it is often easier to create a new life rather than repair the past.
Our past has no need to chase us because we carry it with us every day, whether we care to admit it or not.
Life has a way of creating events that call us back to the scenes of our biggest mistakes. Giving us the chance to make peace wit...more
Our past has no need to chase us because we carry it with us every day, whether we care to admit it or not.
Life has a way of creating events that call us back to the scenes of our biggest mistakes. Giving us the chance to make peace wit...more
I read Jonathan Tropper's two latest books, and loved them both so much that I decided to look back at his earlier novels. I was disappointed by Plan B, so was nervous about starting The Book of Joe. Fortunately, this Tropper novel lived up to my expectations.
Joe Goffman is an acclaimed author living in NYC. His fame came from writing a largely biographical novel about his high school years growing up in the small suburb of Bush Falls, CT. Most of Joe's adolescence was isolated; he did not play...more
Joe Goffman is an acclaimed author living in NYC. His fame came from writing a largely biographical novel about his high school years growing up in the small suburb of Bush Falls, CT. Most of Joe's adolescence was isolated; he did not play...more
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Jonathan Tropper is the author of Everything Changes, The Book of Joe , which was a Booksense selection, and Plan B. He lives with his wife, Elizabeth, and their children in Westchester, New York, where he teaches writing at Manhattanville College. How To Talk To A Widower was optioned by Paramount Pictures, and Everything Changes and The Book of Joe are also in development as feature films.
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“Everyone always wants to know how you can tell when it's true love, and the answer is this: when the pain doesn't fade and the scars don't heal, and it's too damned late.”
—
120 people liked it
“Everyone always wants to know how you can tell when it's true love, and the answer is this: when the pain doesn't fade and the scars don't heal, and it's too damned late.
The tears threaten to return, so I willfully banish all thoughts from my head and take a few more deep breaths. I'm suddenly dizzy from the panic attack I've just suffered, and I close my eyes, resting my head against the warm leather of my steering wheel. Loneliness doesn't exist on any single plane of consciousness. It's generally a low throb, barely audible, like the hum of a Mercedes engine in park, but every so often the demands of the highway call for a burst of acceleration, and the hum becomes a thunderous, elemental roar, and once again you're reminded of what this baby's carrying under the hood.”
—
61 people liked it
More quotes…
The tears threaten to return, so I willfully banish all thoughts from my head and take a few more deep breaths. I'm suddenly dizzy from the panic attack I've just suffered, and I close my eyes, resting my head against the warm leather of my steering wheel. Loneliness doesn't exist on any single plane of consciousness. It's generally a low throb, barely audible, like the hum of a Mercedes engine in park, but every so often the demands of the highway call for a burst of acceleration, and the hum becomes a thunderous, elemental roar, and once again you're reminded of what this baby's carrying under the hood.”
