A young Newark, N.J., Jew heads off to college to grapple with the alien demands of the goyische world in this bizarre, flawed little book. Told in flat, uninflected prose — it reads like Portnoy's Complaint on sedatives — it's full of huge chunks of undigested philosophy and dialogue that could not possibly be spoken by a human being. It's hard to believe Roth used to be witty.