The Straight Man : A novel

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Summary: Another Russo winner! The characters are wonderful.
Review: I stumbled across Richard Russo several years ago when I bought the "Risk Pool." I love his characters--they always seem a bit (wonderfully) confused; trying to make the best of the crazy world in which we live. We should learn from them. "Straight Man" is terrfic--a bit slow in the first few pages, but then takes off. I read much of it while my wife took her turn driving to Minnesota. Terrific book..

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Summary: It's about time!
Review: It seemed to take forever for Russo to come up with another novel. There is no author out there that can captivate a reading audience like Russo. His amazing talent is is once again showcased by the way he creates a storyline that flows to the reader with such life-like characterization. There are no good guys overcoming the bad guys in his fiction, just stories that are as unpredictable as everyday life. The Straight Man steps away from the pattern of Russo's other novels in that the protaganist is now a literary genius instead of the stubborn, negletful father figures that had been portrayed in The Risk Pool and Nobody's Fool. The Straight Man made me laugh out loud, and I can't remember the last time an author managed to do that. It's a truly great book, and I hated for it to end

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Summary: Almost sadly accurate
Review: The best treatment of current academic life I'veread. Russo has me convinced he's worked at theinstitution where I teach, knows my colleagues, and--scariest of all--knows me. But I laughed outloud anyway

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Summary: Disappointing compared with Risk Pool and Mohawk
Review: If you loved Risk Pool and Mohawk, you'll probably be disappointed with Straight Man. Well written in first person but slow going. Amusing but not hilarious. We can only hope he's got this genre out of his system and returns to his earlier form

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Summary: My admiration for Richard Russo's work grows with each novel
Review: My admiration for Richard Russo grows with each novel he writes. The texture of his characters and his sureness of dialogue and place creates a reality that is filled with humor and nuance. Try as I might,I find it almost impossible to read and savor his books slowly. His characters speak of the truth that we all are hiding: beware our bravado-it only exsists to cover our folly. I laugh on every page,but the laughs don't come cheaply; they spring out of the recognition of myself in the behavior of others

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Summary: Wonderfully entertaining
Review: Though not the best book I've read in the past year, this was far and away the most enjoyable one. I frequently found myself laughing out loud. The only reason I give it a 9 instead of a 10 is that though the last half the book was interesting and well written, it lost its humour a little bit. Even had I not laughed once, I would have apprecciated Russo's wonderfully human characters

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Summary: Not as funny as I hoped.
Review: If the book itself was as good as it's reviews, I would be quite happy. I found this book extremely disappointing. Here we have a little university, a bunch of middle age English language professors trying to outsmart each other by either hitting each other or by making obscene telephone calls to each other's homes, or by allowing themselves to openly discuss their mutual disliking. Hell, in the real world, if we were all tenured professors in our jobs, marriages and life in general, maybe I could buy this idea. It also appears that women in these books seem to be complete idiots. We have bimbo (Mrs. Rourke #2), secretary that gets her book published while writing messages on the memo pads where every sentence ends up with the question mark (?); young, pretty woman that main character has "crush" on until it turns out that she is not only alcoholic, but somewhat of a whore; and before I forget , Yes! every (middle aged) man's dream, we got classy lesbian too. If the rest of the book was as good as the opening story of the book ("Dog"), we could talk about writer worthy of admiration. In the meantime, I am glad that Mr. Russo has flock of admirers and he no longer works in the academic environment. For anyone who reads this book it becomes obvious how much demage has academia put on this man. He is not funny, he is not genious, he is just out there..

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Summary: Pathetically Unfunny
Review: As he lay dying, a famous old actor is reputed to have said "Death is easy ... comedy is hard." With this in mind, I should be kinder to Richard Russo whose new novel, STRAIGHT MAN is pathetically unfunny. The setting for the story is a college campus in Pennsylvania; its main character a smart-ass professor of English who is such a malcontent he belittles everyone he encounters with his juvenile pranks and witless remarks. I'd read that the book was laugh-out-loud funny. It is not. Irritating might be a better description

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Summary: Not as funny as "The Risk Pool," but worth reading
Review: Richard Russo's latest book deals with a college professor as he struggles the responsibilities of being the head a department where no one likes each other and the responsibilities of helping his adult daughter in her failing marriage. Russo accomplishes this with his usual flair for language and situations. I often laughed out loud, but not as much as with his previous books. I have loaned this book out to friends, and we all agree it's worth the time to read

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Summary: Library favorite!
Review: I'm the director of a small public Library and I have recommended this book to many patrons who were looking for a humorous book. They've all come back and told me how much they enjoyed this book, and have now gone back to read the author's earlier works. Seems to me that this is the book of the year