This is O'Brien's first pivot from a more "serious" subject matter to something humorous. As the narrator, Thomas Chippering takes us on a wild ride in search of love, revenge, and closure. Chippering's delusions are only outdone by his erotic obsessions. It's a great read, hilarious and poignant.

I have a lot of feelings about this book that I don’t even know how to begin expressing. Read it. Hit me up.

Having heard good things about this author but not wanting to read his devastating and sad books about Viet Nam (friends of mine died or suffered there), I thought this "light-hearted" book of humor, romance, and revenge would be a good choice. Not.

The main character is a literature professor, and proud of his august tenure, reputation, and erudition. So then, how could he be so stupid? He believes every female finds him irresistible and begins perusing him after 2 nanoseconds, and shortly thereafter begins to plot against him. It's supposed to be funny that even a 4 year old girl first selects him for cuddling, then schemes and manipulates to entrap him. Every waitress, old woman on the bus, and student seeks to engage him and it's not his fault. This becomes tedious (as planned) but really, it's tedious.

What saves this book from my "wish I hadn't read" shelf is that eventually, one hated "betrayer" (childhood friend who first seemed diabolically dangerous and sociopathic) is revealed to be a protector and truth-teller. Also in the end, two narcissists learn something about healing from the past and dealing with loss. I don't recommend this book unless you are a male whose life is beset by women who chase and then entrap, and you are a victim of your own good-hearted intentions, good-looks, boundless charm, talent, innocence and intellect, and yet you can't recognize love when it's gone or when it's present.

O'Brien is amazing.

Tim O'Brien can write semi-nonfiction and comic novels about a misguided middle-aged professor on the prowl. Tomcat in Love is a hilarious romp with an obsessed linguistics teacher.

Lots of laughs coiled amongst his very verbose tale. Second book of his and can’t wait for more!

I hated this book. It is somewhere between Irving and Roth with the virtues of neither. I really struggled to finish it, and it became unreadable about two thirds in.

Like all of Mr. O'Brien's works, this book deals with the Viet Nam war, but in a different way... it is a flat out comedy about a loser looking for love. I laughed and laughed at both the situations Thomas Chipperling found himself in but also just at the way O'Brien puts words together. He is an amazing writer.

It's light, but also deadly serious. Whenever someone asks me to recommend a funny book to them, this is at the top of my list. It's very absurd, but also, too damn real. And that's a tricky way to write and he does it beautifully!

To borrow a term from Tomcat in Love, anybody can be "squid-like" and spray ink on a page, but not just anyone writes as well as Tim O'Brien. This is a book that I cannot recommend to all of my female friends because the protagonist of the story is such a freaking womanizer. But, for the truly unfaint of heart who consider great prose above social etiquette, I can wholeheartedly point to this book and call it genius.
We follow Thomas Chipperling through a rather trying year of his life following the breakup of his marriage. It is at once a bleak portrait of man's obsession with woman and a fantastical story of revenge going awry.

O'Brien is an amazing wordsmith, and I was really touched at times by the humanity of Thomas. In the end, all actions are more than understandable, and I would encourage anyone who felt stuck in the story tellers quicksand to hang in with the book. It rewards in the end. I think that comedy can be trickier to create than drama, and so, this comic novel does deserve high praise, indeed. If you want to laugh and you admire linguistic acrobats, then this is a compelling read.

It has been several years since I read it but I keep thinking about it...and it's just great. Highly recommended. And if you want to get into O'Brien, I would suggest this or The Things They Carried.

Hated it. The humor eludes me.

Tomcat in Love is what A Confederacy of Dunces would have been if Tom Robbins had written it.

While discusing the Timothy Cavendish sections of Cloud Atlas my friend Todd told me I'd like this book and loaned it to me. It is zany, at times hilarious, and always outrageous. But it lacked a little something. Plausibility, maybe. Maybe not. At times I could believe that a dorky and delusional college professor (Thomas H. Chippering) plotting revenge against his ex-wife for leaving him could think that every coed on campus wants him. Other times I thought, OK, even the craziest whackjob couldn't believe himself a charming good catch after all that rejection.

The most enjoyable aspect of the book was trying to see through Chippering's stories to glean the truth from them. I just wish there would have been someone to root for in the story. My recommendation: Read this book in a fantasy world you've invented to make yourself look like less of a pedantic jackass.

This book inescapably calls to mind Lolita, and for me the increased accessibility of this one worked in its favor. I was laughing along with this ride, a journey into the toxic and fragile masculinity of its narrator.

my king tim o’brien should stick to his gritty writing…no offense! funky little comedy of a novel, but not enough quirk and not enough normalcy