SOURCE: “Youth and Consequences,” in New Republic, June 26, 1995, pp. 40–41.

In the following review of Wonder Boys, Gorra finds flaws in the novel's disparate plotlines and the protagonist's disingenuous observations.

It [Wonder Boys] starts well. “The first real writer I ever knew was a man who did all of his work under the name of August Van Zorn. He lived at the McClelland Hotel, which my grandmother owned, in the uppermost room of its turret, and taught English literature at Coxley, a small college on the other side of the minor Pennsylvania river that split our town in two.” Already the peculiarly American resonance begins to catch you, the note of the young man from the provinces who has begun to discover a wider world. It is the voice of Nick Carraway and also of the young Nathan Zuckerman; a voice you recognize, that you like and trust. Or...