From the winner of the National Book Award and author of In the Lake of the Woods - a wildly funny, brilliantly inventive novel about a man torn between two obsessions: the desperate need to win back his former wife and a craving to test his erotic charms on every woman he meets. Tim O'Brien made his name with his highly individual, haunting novels inspired by his experiences in Vietnam, including If I Die in a Combat Zone, Going After Cacciato - winner of the National Book Award - and The Things They Carried, ...
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From the winner of the National Book Award and author of In the Lake of the Woods - a wildly funny, brilliantly inventive novel about a man torn between two obsessions: the desperate need to win back his former wife and a craving to test his erotic charms on every woman he meets. Tim O'Brien made his name with his highly individual, haunting novels inspired by his experiences in Vietnam, including If I Die in a Combat Zone, Going After Cacciato - winner of the National Book Award - and The Things They Carried, which was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize. His most recent novel, the many-layered mystery In the Lake of the Woods - also shortlisted for the Pulitzer and chosen by Time as best book of the year - marked a successful change in setting from Vietnam to contemporary America. Now, in Tomcat in Love, Tim O'Brien remains in today's USA and turns his attention to the battle between the sexes, creating a brilliantly inventive, wildly funny black comedy about the dark side of passion and the corrosive effects of long-guarded secrets. It's the story of Thomas Chippering, a pompous linguistics professor and incorrigible flirt, whose wife, Lorna Sue, has left him and moved to Tampa with a sun-tanned tycoon. Chippering is determined to gain revenge, and heads for Tampa, thinking that if he can't get his wife back, at least he can destroy her life... If only Chippering didn't keep being distracted by every woman who passes him by.
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This is my least favorite of O'Brien's novels, by a pretty big margin. It resembles Nabokov's Lolita in ways but suffers hugely by the comparison. The main character is not very interesting, his compulsions becomes boring and repetitious (unlike Humbert Humbert's in Lolita), and the novel lacks variety in action and characterization. If you haven't read O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods, do so. It is Much better than Tomcat. Tomcat in Love is an offense to Cat Lovers everywhere!
EllenS
May 21, 2008
Love that Tomcat
What a fun book to read. Tom is a frustrating type a guy, whose lying mind is slowly exposed throughout his narrative. For women, it's an excellent guide to how a man's mind (might) works. Tim O'Brien is one of the best writers we have.
