JOE COLLEGE (Tom Perrotta) - March 9/07

This early effort from Perrotta is cute enough but nowhere near as engaging as Little Children or Election. His overuse of flashbacks eventually becomes maddening, and there's just no overlooking the feeling that the whole thing would have worked better as a short story. Perrotta does manage to create a hero worth rooting for, however, and the vividness with which he describes Yale, the Roach Coach, and Danny's various friends is certainly impressive. But yeah, not Perrotta's best. *** out of ****