I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe

Tom Wolfe, the master social novelist of our time, the spot-on chronicler of all things contemporary and cultural, presents a sensational new novel about life, love, and learning-or the lack of it-amid today's American colleges. n nOur story unfolds at fictional Dupont University: those Olympian halls of scholarship housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition . . . Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a sheltered freshman from North Carolina. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that for the upper-crust coeds of Dupont, sex, cool, and kegs trump academic achievement every time. n nAs Charlotte encounters the paragons of Dupont's privileged elite-her roommate, Beverly, a Groton-educated Brahmin in lusty pursuit of lacrosse players; Jojo Johanssen, the only white starting player on Dupont's godlike basketball team, whose position is threatened by a hotshot black freshman from the projects; the Young Turk of Saint Ray fraternity, Hoyt Thorpe, whose heady sense of entitlement and social domination is clinched by his accidental brawl with a bodyguard for the governor of California; and Adam Geller, one of the Millennial Mutants who run the university's independent newspaper and who consider themselves the last bastion of intellectual endeavor on the sex-crazed, jock-obsessed campus-she is seduced by the heady glamour of acceptance, betraying both her values and upbringing before she grasps the power of being different-and the exotic allure of her own innocence. n nWith his trademark satirical wit and famously sharp eye for telling detail, Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons draws on extensive observations at campuses across the country to immortalize the early-21st-century college-going experience. n nEditorial Reviews n nWhat New York City finance was to Wolfe in the 1980s and Southern real estate in the '90s, the college campus is in this sprawling, lurid novel: a flashpoint for cultural standards and the setting for a modern parable. At elite Dupont (a fictional school based on Wolfe's research at places like Stanford and Michigan), the author unspools a standard college story with a 21st-century twist. jocks, geeks, prudes and partiers are up to their usual exploits, only now with looser sexual mores and with the aid of cell phones. Wolfe begins, as he might say, with a bango: two frat boys tangle with the bodyguard of a politician they've caught in a sex act. We then race through plots involving students' candy-colored interactions with each other and inside their own heads: Charlotte, a cipher and prodigy from a conservative Southern family whose initiation into dorm life Wolfe milks to much dramatic advantage; Jojo, a white basketball player struggling with race, academic guilt and job security; Hoyt, a BMOC frat boy with rage issues; Adam, a student reporter cowed by alpha males. As in Wolfe's other novels, characters typically fall into two categories: superior types felled by their own vanity and underdogs forced to rely on wiles. But what in Bonfire of the Vanities were powerful competing archetypes playing out cultural battles here seem simply thin and binary types. Wolfe's promising setup never leads to a deeper contemplation of race, sex or general hierarchies. Instead, there is a virtual recitation of facts, albeit colorful ones, with little social insight beyond the broadly obvious. (Athletes getting a free pass? The sheltered receiving rude awakenings?) Boasting casual sex and machismo-fueled violence, the novel seems intent on shocking, but little here will surprise even those well past their term-paper years. Wolfe's adrenalized prose remains on display-e.g., a basketball game seen from inside a player's head-and he weaves a story that comes alive with cinematic vividness. But, like a particular kind of survey course, readers are likely to breeze through these pages-yet find themselves with little to show for it. (Nov. 9) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. n n- Publishers Weekly n nSimultaneous with the Farrar hardcover. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. n n- Library Journal n nOur pre-eminent social realist...trains his all-seeing eye on the institution of the American university. . . . Wolfe's rhapsodic prose style finds its perfect target in academia's beer-soaked bacchanals. -Henry Alford, Newsday n nWolfe is one of the greatest literary stylists and social observers of our much observed postmodern era. . . . A rich, wise, absorbing, and irresistible novel. -Lev Grossman, Time n nTom Wolfe has scored a slam dunk with his...attention to style, the rule-bending punctuation, the deftness of slang dialogue, and that biting satire. -Steve Garbarino, New York Post n nWolfe's dialogue is some of the finest in literature, not just fast but deep. He hears the cacophony of our modern lives. -Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times n n[A] hilarious, exclamation-point filled novel. -John Freeman, Time Out New York n nBrilliant . . . I couldn't stop reading it. . . . Tom Wolfe can make words dance and sing and perform circus tricks, he can make the reader sigh with pleasure. -Michael Dirda, The Washington Post n nA lot of fun . . . Hilarious. -Francine Prose, Los Angeles Times Book Review n nTom Wolfe remains a peerless satirist. Alone among our fiction writers he is actively writing the human comedy, American-style, on a grand Dickensian scale. -David Lehman, Bloomberg News n nScathingly clear-eyed, often very funny take on college life. -Robert Siegel, NPR, All Things Considered n nDazzingly vivid . . . Tom Wolfe has served up another of his broadly entertaining novels. -Adam Begley, The New York Observer n nHis most fully realized and hands-down funniest work of fiction. -Patrick Beach, Austin American-Statesman n nCaptivating . . . Sit back and enjoy the ride. -Tom Walker, The Denver Post n nTom Wolfe is America's greatest living novelist. -Joseph Bottum, The Weekly Standard n nRollicking . . . Just as Americans continue to read A Farewell to Arms or The Great Gatsby, we'll be reading I Am Charlotte Simmons for many years. . . . Professors like to complain that they get a year older every fall, while students always remain the same. Add I Am Charlotte Simmons to that magic circle of campus phenomena unlikely to age. -Carlin Romano, The Philadelphia Inquirer n- From the Publisher n nFamous for showcasing little-noticed social groups and movements, Wolfe turns his unrelenting eyes on college life in the twenty-first century, as beautiful and brilliant Charlotte Simmons, from rural North Carolina, enters a prestigious university on full scholarship. It's brains versus status as fun and frolic prevail. Listeners may relive their own adolescent angst as Charlotte survives and triumphs most (but not all) of the time. Reader Dylan Baker captures and keeps the listener's attention, presenting characters who become real people as Wolfe suggests the question: Will these anarchical conditions prevail, or should we try to return to the older system of stated limits? Bonus: An enlightening interview with Wolfe follows the book's conclusion. L.C. 2005 Audie Award Finalist AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine n- APR/MAY 05 - AudioFile