From Powells.com
Tim
O'Brien is known as a "Vietnam" writer, primarily because his
novels and stories about that particular catastrophe and its aftermath are without
question among the finest ever written. O'Brien won the 1979 National
Book Award for Going
After Cacciato; the Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune
Heartland Prize for his classic collection; The
Things They Carried (which was also a finalist for both the Pulitzer
Prize and the National
Book Critics Circle Award); and both the James Fenimore Cooper Prize and
Time Magazine's best novel of 1994 for In
the Lake of the Woods.
After this last novel, a dark, brooding mystery, O'Brien felt drained,
used up, and told a disappointed public that he had decided to stop writing
fiction, and officially retired. Thankfully, O'Brien's retirement lasted about
as long as Michael Jordan's. After some nagging by his crafty editor, he agreed
to write a nonfiction book, a memoir. He was soon calling his editor
in despair, "I can't write the book," he told him, "it keeps
veering into fiction." Tactfully hiding his glee, O'Brien's editor casually
encouraged him: "Veer away," he told him. Four years later O'Brien
handed over the manuscript to Tomcat in Love. Though O'Brien technically
violated his resolution to stop writing fiction, Tomcat in Love did mark
a clear departure from his earlier work. First of all, it's hilarious. O'Brien
had already demonstrated, in works such as Going After Cacciato, that
he is a gifted satirist. But Tomcat in Love, a classic farce, revealed
a completely new, lighter Tim O'Brien. As one would expect from a writer of
O'Brien's caliber, his farce is very, very funny. If sexist, narcissistic, egomaniacal
Thomas Chippering is one of the most sympathetic unsympathetic characters in
recent years, Tomcat's horrendous gaggle of malicious ex-wives, manipulative
coeds, and terrifyingly precocious eight-year-olds make up one of fiction's
most entertaining supporting casts. Farley, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Tim O'Brien's new book is a tunny, occasionally moving novel which follows Thomas 'Tomcat' Chippering's obsessive pursuit of his ex-wife and his desire for revenge. Chippering, a linguistics professor who refuses to speak the name of his romantic rival, is an incurable flirt. He insists on the depth of his love for his wife even as he blunders from one amorous disaster to the next. Tomcat In Love is a smooth, probably harmless read, which, unfortunately doesn't measure up to the standards Tim O'Brien set for himself with the Things They Carried and Going After Cacciato, which won the National Book Award. Even taken on its own, however, Tomcat In Love never quite manages to come alive and Tomcat, who narrates his own story, is so completely deluded and obnoxious that the reader has a hard time deciding who to pull for in this train wreck of a love story." Reviewed by Andrew Witmer, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Review
"Tomcat in Love is a wonderful novel, laugh-out-loud funny, one of the best books I've come across in years. . . . Go out and find a copy . . . now. It really is that good." Washington Post
Review
"A great American novel." Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Review
"Tim O'Brien knows cold the spiraling insularity of obsession. . . . Thomas Chippering . . . is wickedly realized. The agility and intelligence that created this pathos-ridden romantic make one marvel at Tim O'Brien's gifts." Boston Sunday Globe
Review
"It's a plain fact; don't argue. Tim O'Brien can flat-out write. . . . Quirky and immensely satisfying. . . . After all the years of deadly serious writing, O'Brien has swung from the opposite side of the plate with Tomcat. He's hit a home run." Denver Post
Review
"Wildly funny, accusingly poignant. . . . O'Brien has done a masterful job of depicting all those loose ends, those unmailed valentines, that final abiding question we have all . . . asked of the loved one who has left us behind." San Diego Union Tribune
Review
"Like all comic novels, Tomcat is a complex affair that invites a complex response and offers a complex reward." The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Tim O'Brien received the 1979 National Book Award in Fiction for Going After Cacciato. His novel The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. His novel In the Lake of the Woods was a national bestseller, received the James Fenimore Cooper Prize from the Society of American Historians, and was selected as the best work of fiction of 1994 by Time magazine.