Around Harvard Square

By C. J. Farley

Farley is a graduate of Harvard and the former editor of the Harvard Lampoon

Farley will be very active in book promotion, and he has a great platform stemming largely from his work as an editor for the Wall Street Journal; he is also a frequent guest commentator on CNN, etc.

Farley has 13.6 thousand Twitter followers and an active blog

Farley has written best-selling biographies on the musician Aaliyah (Bookscan 100k+) and Bob Marley

Book publication date is April 1, 2019 (April Fool's Day), to capitalize on the humor magazine content

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Sheep
• Release date: Apr 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781617757266

C. J. Farley

C.J. Farley has worked as a senior editor for the Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, and is the author of such novels as Game World, Kingston by Starlight, and My Favorite War. Farley served as consulting producer on the Peabody-winning HBO documentary Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown and wrote the best-selling biographies Aaliyah: More Than a Woman and Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley. Farley, who was born in Kingston, Jamaica, is a graduate of Harvard and a former editor of the Harvard Lampoon. He is currently an executive editor at Audible.

Reviews for Around Harvard Square

[sheriawilkinson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Around Harvard Square by C.J. FarleySet in the 1990's the story centers around Tosh, a student who decides he wants to be on the staff of the "Harvard Harpoon". With a mix of diversified friends, at Harvard University he sees first hand how students of different races and social (economic) standing live. The story moves at a past pace, with attention to detail, engaging dialog , humor and well developed characters. I liked the differences each character brought to the story, and how they interacted with each other. Overall I enjoyed Around Harvard Square and feel others will as well. A definite good read.* I received this book from Library Thing in exchange for an honest review.

[minacee · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is was a novel I read quickly. I was hooked from the the first line (I started to read it on my way in from the the mailbox) but after I was finished I had to sit with it mentally for longer than it took me to read. That's not necessarily a bad thing because I enjoyed the characters ( a diverse group of freshmen navigating Harvard) and the setting (1990's Harvard to be precise.). The story was a little much at times: I thought there were too many twists and turns. I felt like every time I settled in to immerse myself the story would veer a bit and I'd get exhausted by all the "intrigue." Is this one of those novels where the writer did that on purpose to mimic the way the characters felt and the events they were experiencing for the reader? Probably but it's not my favorite way to read.

[othemts · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I received a free copy of this book through the Library Thing Early Reviewers program.This novel is narrated by Tosh, an African-American Freshman at Harvard who grew up in a small town in rural Upstate New York and is the first person in his family to go away for college.  He forms a friendship of outcasts with his roommate Lao, a student from China with a fear of robots, and Meera, an androgynous Indian student.  He also is attracted to the mysterious Zippa, a Jamaican student squatting in the trash room of his residence hall.The trio of Tosh, Lao, and Meera take a philosophy course with an eccentric and provocative professor known as "the Chair." They also get involved in a competition to get spots on the staff of the university humor magazine, the Harvard Harpoon.  The experience is a lot like rushing a fraternal organization with hazing rituals and cruel pranks.  Zippa appears first as something like a Greek chorus on what Tosh is doing and then later joins the action as a provocateur.Many names in the novel are changed - like the Harpoon, which is substituted for the Lampoon - as are the names of prominent Harvard alumni, although it's blatantly obvious who they are.  There's also a book within the narrative called Around Harvard Square which is said to be a famous novel where all the names were changed, so that's super-meta, I guess. The book is set in the 90s which is emphasized by each chapter being named for a 90s alternative rock  or hip hop song title.  But the dialogue in the book seems more like it's from the 2010s.  Also, I may be stretching it here, but I see odd parallels between Tosh, Lao, and Meera with the leads in another school-based book set in the 90s, Harry, Ron, and Hermione.   Only 90s kids will understand.I really want to love this book, because it is witty and the characters and the premise are a good start.  But unfortunately, the plot just jumps around, there are way too many coincidences, and the dialogue is like people practicing dialectics rather than natural speak.  The idea that privileged white people and the academic institutions that support them need to be taken down a peg is a good one, but there's no subtlety in this satire.

[lizzied_11 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Around Harvard Square is as a fantasy with strong lashings of satire and occasional sobering dips into reality. The Harvard freshmen that we meet are all brilliant and all exceptional beyond their academic prowess. Tosh Livingston, the narrator, was a basketball genius until an injury ended his potential career. His friends are a one-eyed Chinese entrepreneur, a Bollywood star who took very early retirement, and a Jamaican artist who lives in the basement of their dorm. These three decide to try out for the independent humor magazine, Harvard Harpoon and soon learn that humor is a deadly serious business. I'm too old to get a lot of the contemporary references, but I was entertained by the lists of authors scattered throughout the book, which included Eric Blair, Mary Anne Evans, Willie DuBois, Edward Casaubon, Hank Chinaski, and Oxy More. The satire comes close to preaching as it shows up white privilege, a term that feels "Jack-and-Jill genteel," and is replaced by double unconsciousness. The prime example of double unconsciousness is the assumption that any black student is at Harvard through affirmative action and any white student, who is not a legacy, earned his way there by hard work.The writing is memorable. The fantasy is wild. The plotting is a trifle forced. Thanks to Early Reviewers for my copy. ram pa pa pam

[froxgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Books filled with in-jokes just make me feel excluded. But perhaps that's one method for a black man accepted to Harvard and desperately trying to get into the Harvard Lampoon to get his readers to understand his otherness. Or it's just literary snobbery. Either way, there's a great deal of funny stuff in here, as befitting an author who was a former Lampoon editor, but the deliberate misnaming of the Lampoon itself (herein named "Harpoon") and its well-known alums such as George Plimpton and John Updike, seems just silly here and a casual reader will have no stake in trying to figure out all the hidden figures. The trio of friends, a former Bollywood actress, an Asian video gamer, and the formerly great basketball player Tosh who tells the story, are an amusing circle of friends, and the scenes in classrooms and during final exams are vivid enough to make the reader break a sweat, but all in all it just doesn't add up to anything memorable.

[thedivineoomba · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really wanted to love this book. And at the beginning, I did. Unfortunately, it took a turn to the absurd, and it lost the message of redefining yourself (whether it be an ex-basketball player, or former Baliwood actress, or even you cultural identity).As the weirdness ramped up, the message became muddy, lost in stupid over the top pranks. Add in a messed up lampoon newspaper that is competing with a gossip rag, and a sad professor of ethics, we get a story that wants to shine, but doesn't. I really wanted a story about a black kid trying to make it at Harvard - but Tosh isn't really a character - he's the center of all the weirdness, but he's the calm of nothing in which other characters revolve around. When Tosh has to deal with father in the midst of a crisis, it seems tacked on, rather than part of who Tosh is. I almost think that a case can be made for each of Tosh's friends being a small part of Tosh - the Asian kid with all the technology, the former child star from India - even the Jamaican Girl with the pet hummingbird.I think there is a lot of potential here. But, unfortunately, it missed the mark.Edited to add: this is a 3 star book, but I took half a star off for being disappointed.

[michaelg16 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Fantasy bordering on Science Fiction - and no that is not a slight to those genres -it is a slight to this author who clearly did not want anyone to think in those terms since it is squarely placed in a "real " Harvard Square of a generation ago and has a constant barrage of references to actual places and events that normally I would enjoy since I frequent the Square weekly and have since the late 1970's. This well-meaning and somewhat well-written tale spins off into nonsense with such regularity I found it ultimately unsatisfying and nearly unreadable. Sorry.

[diana.hauser · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

AROUND HARVARD SQUARE by C.J. Farley. I received an ARC (Advance Reading Copy) from Akashic Books for an honest and unbiased review. “Tosh Livingston, superstar student-athlete from small-town USA, thinks he’s made it big as a rising freshman at Harvard University. Once on campus, he’s ensnared in a frenzied competition to win a spot on Harvard’s legendary humor magazine, the Harpoon. Tosh soon finds that joining the Harpoon is a weird and surprisingly dangerous pursuit.” (Press Kit)AROUND HARVARD SQUARE is a coming-of-age story; a story about friendship; a story about class and elitism; a story about colleges with their faults and hypocrisy and scandal laid bare. It is very self-deprecating, humorous, witty and fast-paced.It is filled with interesting and bizarre characters - Tosh ‘Tech’ Livingston, Lao, Meera, D2 - Dorian & Davis, Professor Hyacinth ‘The Chair’ Bell, Tilfer Peerpont, Spooner Peerpont, Morven S. Morlington (editor of the Magenta), Festus the Hummingbird and Zippa (Zipporah Windward) of ‘ram pa pa pam’ fame.It is filled with interesting and bizarre terms and events - Ubersectionality, Final Clubs, Comps, Compers, the Harpoon (a Harvard student-run publication), pranks gone amuck, illegal disposal of sewage, suicide, corruption, inept college programs and personnel, vandalism, great wealth, prejudice, racism, sexism, student activism and inhumane treatment of hummingbirds.There were many witty and memorable quotes:“Lao gave us a look so sheepish it could have been sheared.” (Loved that one)“I had arrived at the one place where I could be exactly the person I wanted to be: anybody else.”“That’s how institutions survive - they change people who think they’re changing the institution.”I think I am a bit too old to be able to understand this book. There. I’ve owned up to that. I mean, I get that it is part farce. I know what a farce is - a theater piece marked by humorous characterizations and improbable plots; a ludicrous show; a mockery. And I get that it is part satire - irony, derision, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity. And I get that it is comedy. What is the book when it is a sum of all three parts?For me, it was part laughing out loud, part confusion, part admiration of the author’s cleverness and imagination, part sadness and part irritation.You see, just when I was beginning to ‘get’ what was going on and understand the characters better and glad that that smug creep, Spooner Peerpont was ‘going to get his’, I realized with a sinking feeling that I had been royally, mercilessly, Harpooned. And it hurt.I don’t want to spoil the ending. It is a bit complicated (or it was for me). I did like reading about the author, C.J. Farley. He is a very renowned author and editor. I did enjoy reading AROUND HARVARD SQUARE and would recommend it. I can say that my freshman year at a midwestern state university was absolutely nothing like this! (I might be glad about that!)