The Straight Man : A novel

Rating:
Summary: Straight Man is the best novel I've read this year.
Review: Russo manages to be both comic and serious at the same time. This is always a difficult task, but he handles it superbly. Straight Man has great, true-to-life, memorable characters. Russo writes clear, brilliant dialogue. There's not a false note in the entire novel. He manages to spear academia without falling into the predictable or the easy. I hesitate to say this, but I think this novel has "movie" written all over it. In the right hands with the right script, Straight Man will make a movie as strong and funny as the novel

Rating:
Summary: Exellent!
Review: I picked this book up on a whim (because of the odd cover, actually) and now I can't wait to read Russo's previous works. Straight Man is a must-read book for anyone who has an appreciation for a story well-written--it's a sublime page-turner. Laugh-out-loud funny.

Rating:
Summary: Can this book really be that good?
Review: As a college professor in a small, but certainly not "backwater", academic institution there is no way that Russo's latest book can be as funny, as cynical, as unbelieveable, and as "Marx Brothersesque" as the real thing...then again...this is Russo and if book reviews are to have any value what others have said leads me to believe that "STRAIGHT MAN" may just be the guide to the comic set-up called higher education

Rating:
Summary: A complete novel
Review: Low-key, with few pyrotechnics, but Richard Russo paints a portrait of a middle-aged academic, his family, and his community that is unmatched. Russo does not go for cheap laughs at the expense of academics, but sees how their lives have a pathos that is indeed representative of many men (or women) in American today. You have to read the book to get the joke in the last line!

Rating:
Summary: Where is this Man's PULITZER?
Review: To paraphrase our protagonist, Hank: "I'm not a literary critic, but I can act like one." Richard Russo is a genius. ALL of his books are wonderfull. "Straight Man" is hillarious - I TRIED to read it slowly to savor every moment...but I just couldn't put it down

Rating:
Summary: Loved it! Great read for Russo fans.
Review: As is the case for all of his novels, the setting is central. In Straight Man, his trademark small town America is complicated by the milieu of a small but politically charged adademic institution. I found this to be, by far, the most amusing of his books (laugh out loud on every page) but I am an academic and personally relate to the setting

Rating:
Summary: Another great book by Russo, but with limited focus.
Review: Another entertaining book by Russo. Unfortunately this time he focuses on the head of the English department of a small northeastern college. Much of the political infighting could be unfamiliar to those who aren't English majors. I am burdened by the fact that I have three undergraduate degrees, one being English and so I can't tell if this book is for "we English department lackeys." I'd like to hear from others who aren't English majors

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious but heartbreaking novel of life's pettiness
Review: In this hilarious but heart-breaking novel, Richard Russo paints a vividly true-to-life picture of the tragedy of a man who appears to have got it all in life. Henry William Devereaux Jr. is a 50 years-old professor of English serving as an interim chair of a department that is never in consensus in a badly underfunded college in a rusty locale of Pennsylvania. The pettiness of work politics and the turbulent drama among the personnel that enshrouds his department strikes him off guard like a belated mid-life crisis.

In the course of a week Henry, an anarchist in heart with a lack of political acumen, is mangled by an angry colleague in his nose, battered by the wave of rumors auguring an impending university-wide purge, swept by a surging sentiment among the mutinous colleagues who threatened a recall. And to top it all, he dreads the returning of his father who left him and his mother for the first of his female graduate students some 40 years ago.

Henry's determined reticence and the complaisance rooted in his character somehow galvanize the silent tension that reigns over him and his colleagues. So long as he dismisses the purge as rumors, his friends and colleagues think he is committing political suicide and are ready to strangle him. This is where his character flaw being fully exposed, that in the face of life's seriousness, its pettiness, its tragedy, its absurdity, and its lack of coherent meaning he seems to be unusually ignorant and indifferent, and sadly, he finds himself defenseless. This is where his tragedy lies dormantly until something as pathetic as the pettiness of people politics at work evokes its existence. His tragedy lies in the fact that he is too reasonable, being overly logical. So long as he can maintain the public posture that does not call him out of his comfort zone, he remains complaisant and unchallenged. His complaisance demonstrates that a great deal of havoc can be wrought in relationship (especially the ones that are no longer remediable) by anyone so inclined, at least if that person is sufficiently insensitive to ridicule, personal invective and threat.

The mellow professor's sudden flamed-up reaction surprises all that is used to his insensitiveness. His threat to kill a duck (a goose!) on TV camera at the frustration of not receiving a budget serves more than just a comic relief of the tension that builds up incessantly. The escapade almost bespeaks his formidable conviction of refusing to sell out his colleagues; and on top of it he radically comes out of his nut-shell to protest injustice of the university administration. On facing the accusation of killing a goose of which he does not deny being the perpetrator, even his staunch political allies have aligned themselves against him. They speak of him performance as chair, detailing of many grievances, suspecting him of aiding the administration in the purge, and misinforming and betraying the department. At the core of this crisis he has to confront the question: Does he really belong? He is either to live among his colleagues who are as flustered, complacent, deadwood and tenuredly banal as the geese, or he should take a respectful leave and leave behind the squalor of politics.

STRAIGHT MAN alerts not only its protagonist but all his witnesses the conflicts, wounds, unsettled scores we have never come to terms with, that sneak up on us, insisting upon immediate attention and action, if not resolution. His cowardice is always understood to be the sole impediment to his reconciling with his philandering, distant father. This cowardice manifests in his assiduous contribution, under a pseudonym, of satires on academic lunacy which has raised ire of the university personnel. While one might laugh and feel disconcerted at Henry's vices, it's also time to reconsider issues in life that one has so adamantly evaded.



Rating:
Summary: I got goosed.
Review: Quite frankly I had never heard of Richard Russo before this book. I picked this book up simply because of the goose on the cover. I am so glad I did. This book did something I haven't done in a long time. I actually read it...from begining to end. With such a hetic life, time for reading is almost nil. With this book I MADE time.

Richard Russo, paints the picture of a...well, everyman. A man named Hank. everyone, knows someone like this in their lives. Someone who gets by with humor and an easy going manner. The same someone everything good and bad seems to happen to.

Hank has problems at work, problems at home, problems with his family and problems with his prostate. With all this, he still manages to do what we all do...work through it. Even with all that on his plate, hanks still manages to do it all with a grain of salt and a great quip.

I can't recommend this book enough. Looking for something lighthearted, with a message and just plain fun? Then read this book.

Rating:
Summary: I love this book
Review: This is probably the best book I have read all year. I have recommended it to many people and they all enjoyed it. Definitely worth the read!