American writer Jonathan Tropper manages to write about serious things lightly, with irony, and at the same time with deep feeling. Tropper’s books are about finding oneself and growing up late, about attempts to come to terms with the loss of loved ones and to find love. They are filled with laugh-out-loud funny scenes and razor-sharp dialogue. The hero of “The Book of Joe” is an unlucky young writer who became famous for a tell-all novel about his hometown. Joe is sure he will never go back there—until one day he has to, and he must look his characters in the eye.