Rating: 
Summary: DELICIOUS THOUGH MILDLY WANDERING JAB AT MID-LIFE & ACADEMIA
Review: I am not sure I agree with the reviewers who believe that Straight Man falls short of Russo's other works (notably, Risk Pool). The romp through a middle-aged man's tryst with petty politics of an English department is a very interesting even hilarious one, and most of the snippy observations along the way are vintage Russo. Hank, a liberal arts professor on the verge of being unseated from his department chair in the middle of a budgetary restructuring effort, is actually not a very likeable fellow at all. At sea with his alternatives, he declares that he will kill "a duck a day" from the pond on campus until he receives a budget from the administration. Clearly one of the most exciting things on an otherwise drab campus, this sets off a chain of events whose reverberation only serves to highlight just how pathetic and parochial the concerns of small-college liberal arts professors can get. The narrative is fresh, multiple threads of Hank's life (including frequent flashbacks) intertwine to create the whole amusing predicatement, without stooping to the level of a typical situational comedy. My only minor quibble with this book though is in its denouement, when Hank attempts to sum up all his eventful life's lessons. Your mileage may vary, but it appeared a little trifling to me. However that is no reason to keep off this book, it is a fast and funny summer read and definitely worth your while if you are looking for an intelligent read that'll frequently make you laugh out loud.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written, funny and credible
Review: Straight Man is a comedy about an English profess undergoing a mid-life crisis at the same time as his university is undergoing a budgetary crisis. As is typical of a Russo novel, the prose is often brilliant, the scenes and dialogue vibrant.. Many scenes border on the farcical, and are very funny, without detracting from the credibility of the characters. There is a large cast of characters, and while many are typical denizens of an academic novel, the professor's colleague Tony is a particulary fresh and delightful secondary character. The professor's relationship with his daughter is very well done, and Russo's portrayal of the professor's marriage is insightful; at the same time the wife's character is more described than developed Russo sometimes relies too much on "shticks", such as the use of Occam and the professor's sarcastic repartee. In summary, Straight Man is very enjoyable, well written, funny, and deals with credible people and relationships.
Rating:
Summary: A Perfect Novel
Review: I am not the kind of reader who regularly registers my appreciation of humor in books by laughing aloud. So it wasn't until chapter 28 of Richard Russo's Straight Man that I broke my silence. By that time the book's protagonist, William Henry Devereaux Jr., had landed in a situation too delightfully absurd for anyone, Mr. Devereaux included, to hold it in. Hank Devereaux is the acting chairman of a Balkanized English Department at an undistinguished university, the sort of place academics find themselves stuck in, La Brea Tar Pits-like, after the receipt of tenure and other of life's snares have eroded their ability to move on to better things. Hank is defined largely by what others perceive as his principal character flaw--he annoys his friends and family and makes enemies of his colleagues because of his failure to take most things in life seriously. He is, as a result, a very funny character. Hank is also a devoted if somewhat oblivious husband, the sort who depends on his wife to balance the check book ("Our portfolio, I'm to understand, is intact. This is good news. That we have a portfolio, I mean."); and a sympathetic dog-owner ("I know and understand my dog well. We share many deep feelings."); and a one-book author; and the son of William Henry Devereaux Sr., a literary critic and author more distinguished but less reliable than his son. In the course of the book Hank is beset by the academic infighting that attends a university-wide budget crisis, by animal rights activists incensed by his on-air near strangling of a goose and his threat of further fowl play, and by his inability to produce satisfactory quantities of urine. Richard Russo, on the other hand, is evidently the kind of man who cannot write a bad sentence. There are passages in Straight Man that demand re-reading, either because they are that funny or that well-written or because, for example, he has *so* captured the murderous annoyance that can come with wifedom and motherhood [pp. xiv, 136]. (How could he have known?) This is a book to be savored. It's as good as it gets.
Rating:
Summary: Lucky Jim rides again
Review: A very funny but touching novel about a professor of English in a state university facing budget cuts, involved in academic politics,not sure if he wants to keep his job, and self-destructively offending all his colleagues with his smart mouth. William Henry Devereaux Jr is having problems with his marriage, his friends' marriages, his daughter's marriage, his parents and his prostate.
Like most professors of English in novels (and a lot of novels are about professors of English) he seems afflicted with dumb students and to be totally cynical about the whole enterprise of literary scholarship. This started, I think, with Kinglsley Amis's "Lucky Jim" He's out to show that he's a regular guy, something of a jock, and not like those smartypants hoity-toity academics. He dislikes his father as much for spending too time reading as for deserting his family. Like "Lucky Jim" this contains several farcical incidents. I could not follow exactly what was happening in the prolonged scene where he has wet his pants and is hiding in an attic eavesdropping on a committee meeting.
Rating:
Summary: Heaping Praise
Review: I just figured I would heap more praise upon Richard Russo's "Straight Man." With 165-odd reviews, Russo hardly needs my nod, but this is one of my favorite novels, and I can hardly ever resist recommending it. I had the fortune to purchase Straight Man as a remainder late one beach season. I could hardly put it down. Russo has a rare talent for comic timing and character development. Even if one has never worked in an environment even close to the college English department created by Russo, the atmosphere is tangible. I thrust this book upon my (now ex-) wife after I finished it, and still reminisce upon having it read aloud through the sad, slow miles from beach vacation to workaday world. If that's not a favorable vote, I don't know what is.
Rating:
Summary: My new favorite book
Review: I am a committed Richard Russo fan, and this is my favorite of the lot. Hilarious and true.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious
Review: While all of Russo's oeuvre is interesting and well-written, this is his only truly comic novel. My favorite character ever is the straight man to the absurd characters that populate his life. His rampant self-destructiveness is envious and his ability to see through the agendas around him make him very much a loner, but oh god is he funny. I give this book as a gift every chance I get.
Rating:
Summary: If this Book Doesn't Make You Laugh...
Review: ..then, "Jack..You Dead! I had thought until reading STRAIGHT MAN that the standard for humorous novels with academic settings had been set by James Hynes. Russo is even funnier. His comic timing is akin to the great comedians of stage and sceen, like the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Moore & Cooke, etc. Yet not only is the man funny, he can flat out write, as well. In STRAIGHT MAN, Russo performs a balancing act of surface playfulness combined with searing truths about life's missed opportunities and moments of quiet despair. Behind the one-liners and the buffoonery of Henry Devereux Jr.'s comic mask, exists an enigmatic, compassionate, troubled soul, whose personality disorder has been triggered by a single incident he shares with his mother when he is a young teen. His humorous guise is something he has created so as to safely retreat from the seperation anxiety that is his constant companion. To his friends and colleagues he is "Hank," easy to dismiss or to to ridicule, or in two instances, to physically attack (OK, three, if you count the goose!). Russo does a very subtle and masterful job of slowly developing the interior Henry Devereux Jr., however, and by the novel's end, the reader has been granted the full revelation of character and the whole man stands naked (figuritavely speaking) before us. STRAIGHT MAN is definitely my recommendation of 2003, thus far. The funny bits are truly hysterical. The dramatic bits ring true to life. This certainly not just another humorous novel about Academia. It's as well written and well rounded as any novel I've read in recent years. I look forward with great anticipation to reading EMPIRE FALLS.
Rating:
Summary: I know Hank
Review: William Henry Devereaux, Jr., the leading character in Richard Russo's STRAIGHT MAN, is a really funny guy. He always has a quick comeback. I'd like to have a friend like Devereaux, but nothing more serious, because he might drive me insane due to not ever knowing if he is telling the truth. 'Hank' finds a lot of humor in his academic life in a small Pennsylvania college. Towards the end of this book he turns philosophical, reflecting on the meaning of all that has transpired. I know Devereaux. He's the kind of man who always makes me take a look at myself.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Campus Novels I've Read
Review: In an era when almost all of our writers are also professors, the campus novel or story has become a norm. Straight Man is, however, also a great read, accessible and entertaining to non-academics. The narrator is authentic and heartfelt. His sense of humor about love, academia, literature, and life in general elicits by turns gut-busting laughter and wry, ironic grins. The only other book of this sort as well-written and as entertaining is David Slavitt's The Cliff (LSU Press). I advise everyone to buy both of these books and settle in for some good laughs and some of the most quotable passages in American literature.
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