The prose rates a perfect 10 for ease of use and so, long as this book is, you glide right through it without a hitch. But his disdain for the overly literary is a real boon to his reviewers. About Wolfe’s preposterous claims regarding the novel as a genre, I’ll have more to say in the next couple of days. Going in, there’s one thing you can say about Tom Wolfe: At least he’s no worse than Tom Wolfe. I’m glad we have three days here, to help discover how this unsacred monster, with its raft of insecurities and no social graces to speak of, holds some inexplicable power to … well, not charm, exactly. And yet … and yet … I kinda liked I Am Charlotte Simmons, ripe for the pyre as it is. This is the predictable doorstop, perfectly timed for seasonal gifting.) At one point I wrote in its margins, The stupidity here may actually be boundless. It is overdrawn, overlong, underconsidered, and filled with at least one forehead-slapping ay caramba per page.

This is an eminently foolish book, by an old man for whom the life of the young has become a grotesque but tantalizing rumor. I Am Charlotte Simmons is a sprawling anatomy of undergraduate life that centers on four main characters: the implausibly naive character of the book’s title, and the three male students who, with varying intentions, attempt to woo her: Hoyt Thorpe, a smirking, born-on-third-base frat boy in the George Bush mold Jojo Johansenn, a hulking power forward for the school’s NCAA championship basketball team and Adam Gellin, a vengeful nerd who writes for the school newspaper. Virginia! We meet again! There is so much to say about Tom Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, and the university life this new novel purports to depict, that I’ll skip all introductory coughing and dive right in.

I am charlotte simmons writer tom