Compelling Coming-of-Age Tale . The title of this novel would lead one to believe that it's about the life of a student in college, but that's not exactly the case.  Sure, part of it takes place at college, but in truth it's more of a coming-of-age story;  a young man's attempt to reconcile his working class, suburban upbringing with the wealth and intellectual glamour he discovers at prestigious Yale University.  It's a well-told and compelling tale, and, like other Perrotta novels, leaves one with something to think about at its end.     We meet Danny in his junior year as he is finally coming into his own.  He's established himself intellectually, he's got new and interesting friends, and he's even a bit of a celebrity in that he's an integral part of a newly-minted literary magazine.  It's now been more than two years since he came to school and his home-town ties are slowly disintegrating.  But some are more difficult to abandon than others.      His father, for one, owns a lunch truck, or roach coach.  In a mid-life change of careers, he's decided to become his own man, to run his own business.  But it is stressful work, and damaging to his health.  Danny finds that he must spend all his vacation time helping him.  Then there is the girl Danny met from his old high school.  She's a secretary now, at a run-of-the-mill, small industrial plant.  He goes out with her knowing full well that the relationship will never blossom into anything.  He is aware he is using her.      Although Danny is doing well, grade-wise, he is painfully aware of all of the shenanigans going on around him, some of which he participates in.  A girl has basically moved into his suite with one of his roommates.  Other roommates smoke dope.  Another spends his time in fascination with assassins of American presidents.  Everybody drinks way, way too much.  One evening, while cavorting with a female on the campus grounds, he is ridiculed by a student-actor dressed as the "fool" from Shakespeare's King Lear.  Is this why our parents spend thousands and thousands of dollars a year?  He thinks.    With his background, he is able to view these goings-on through the eyes of the average working-stiff American, and without ever explicitly saying why, finds that he is ashamed.  His actions, sometimes reckless, sometimes foolish, seem to indicate a subconscious desire to be punished.  This conflict is unresolved by novel's end.      It is unlikely that this novel will ever win a Pulitzer Prize, or even be nominated for one.  There is no huge encompassing theme, there are no substantial truths revealed, there is no scathing indictment of society.  None of that.  It is, however, a tautly told, bright, compelling narrative with characters one would expect to meet in real life.      It is, frankly, the type of thing which present-day aspiring authors should strive for.  The average reader is not interested in being dazzled by an author's research or bombarded with symbolic references to Freud, he is interested in being told a good story.  If an author does this well enough and often enough, all of those other elements--the ones which make a novel great--will fall into place.  Indeed, they did so in Mr. Perrotta's most recent effort, the excellent Little Children.  Joe College works because, at the very least, it is a fine example of the art of storytelling.
Output: POS