The Graduate — Charles Webb

The novel about an aimless young man in 1960s America that inspired the classic film: “Moves with the speed and drive of a runaway locomotive.” -- Chicago Sunday Review
 
When Benjamin Braddock graduates from a small eastern college and comes home to his parents' house, everyone wants to know what he's going to do with his life. Benjamin has no idea. Feeling empty, embittered, and adrift, he stumbles into an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father's business partner. But then he falls in love with a woman closer to his own age: Mrs. Robinson's daughter.
 
A scathingly entertaining tale of idealism and materialism, corruption and conformity, The Graduate is both a darkly comic love-triangle tale and a sharp look at postwar suburbia.
 
“He contrives some ludicrously funny situations and he keeps his story racing.” -- The New York Times Book Review
 
“His novel makes you want to laugh and it makes you want to cry.” -- The Plain Dealer