Rating: 
Summary: A beautifully written book
Review: Donald Sullivan--"Sully"--has rarely met a promising opportunity he didn't walk away from. Arguably the most stubbornly wrongheaded man in the economically depressed village of North Bath, New York, Sully scrapes a living as a jack of all trades, often fed construction work by the town's most fortunate scion, Carl Roebuck. Roebuck, a man with the sexual appetite of a satyr, enjoys an amusing love-hate relationship with Sully, the product of a lifetime of acquaintance in a small town. Richard Russo's Nobody's Fool abounds in these rich relationships, fully-formed characters sharing complex, realistic histories with one another. Chief among those characters is Sully's landlady and one-time 8th-grade teacher, 80-year-old Beryl Peoples, who has been Sully's staunch ally for more than forty years.Nobody's Fool is a chronicle of one particularly trying period in Sully's life, during which he is plagued by a grotesquely swollen knee and by unusually vivid reminiscences of his abusive father, now dead. ("Sully hated to think of his father at rest, and had there been a way, and if Sully'd had the money, he'd have left instructions to have Big Jim dug up every decade or so, just to make sure he didn't get comfortable.") The book is beautifully written, and Russo's evocation of North Bath is so successful that the town and its strange-looking denizens will come to reside in your imagination. A good, long, slow read you'll be sorry to part with.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book!
Review: In brief, Nobody's Fool is yet another brilliant, hilarious and affectionate snapshot of small-town life in a fictional upstate New York town from Richard Russo. Though he mines the same territory in most of his works (absent, good-for-nothing fathers), in Nobody's Fool we get inside the head of one of these said fathers in Donald "Sully" Sullivan. And as is also the case with Russo's novels, his plots take their time to develop. In the hands of a less skilled writer, that could be infuriating, but Russo's prose and characterization is so entertaining, by the time he gets to the point you're having so much fun, it makes the wait more than worth it.
If you're looking for an introduction to Russo's work or just want a great novel to live with for a few weeks, Nobody's Fool is the perfect balance between "serious" literature and homespun storytelling. Do yourself a favor and start reading.
Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: Mr. Russo is becoming one of my favorite authors. NOBODY'S FOOL is about nothing and yet it is about everything. He presents with a group of richly drawn characters in a small "dying" town in upstate New York. Donald "Sully" Sullivan is at the heart of the novel and forever in our hearts. This novel is to be savored and enjoyed.
Rating: 
Summary: An candid window into small town America
Review: NOBODY'S FOOL centers around the story of Donald Sullivan (Sully), a middle-aged man whose life has been a series of mishaps and poor choices. As the book opens, Sully, out of work due to disability, decides to quit his college classes and to try to make some money instead. This bad decision sets off one of Sully's infamous streaks of bad luck, a streak which eventually lands Sully in jail, amongst other problems.
This novel's main strength lies in its richly developed characters. We learn the most about Sully, the chief narrator, from his ongoing feud with his deceased alcoholic father to his fleeting regrets about his own parenting skills. Another prominent character is Sully's octogenarian landlady, Miss Beryl, who provides the point of view for both the opening and the closing of the story. The remainder of the town is replete with quirky characters, including Sully's one-legged drunken lawyer, Wirf; his slow-witted best friend, Rub; his womanizing boss, Carl; his surprisingly competent son, Peter; his nervous grandson, Will; and finally, his long-time lover, Ruth, whose family includes her brassy daughter Janey and her troubled granddaughter Tina.
Where this novel is less successful is in its rambling prose: the author has the habit of going off on tangents and pontificating on various subjects which add little to the story. Despite this critique, however, the engaging characters sustain this novel, and like me, you will want to know how their lives turn out.
Rating: 
Summary: Great, except for a few paragraphs.
Review: Nobody's Fool starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, and Jessica Tandy is my personal favorite movie of all time, and I have seen thousands. Therefore, it was with some trepidation that I turned to the book. In fact, I had the book in my possession for several years before deciding to read it. In the past I have been disappointed with a book after seeing an especially good movie. Case in point, Paul Newman's Hud, which was based on Larry McMurtry's Horseman, Pass By. I enjoyed the movie, but the reading of the book watered down that enjoyment. One reason, all of the good lines that were uttered by other characters in the book, were given to Hud in the movie. Alone, both the movie and book were fine, but together they sabotaged each other. Fortunately, this is not the case with Nobody's Fool. The book is a fine companion piece to the movie. And I am glad I visited them in this order. If I had read the book first, I would have felt cheated by the movie, because so much background on the characters was left out. However, reading the book after seeing the movie heightened the enjoyment of the movie as I learned more about all of the characters and their motivations. Sully's football hero youth and his on-again off-again affair, Rub's stealing and dominating wife, and Clive, Jr's fiancee are just a few of the extra goodies in the book not in the movie. However, there was one scene in the book which was not in the movie and I wish it hadn't been in the book. That is when Carl Roebuck lashes out verbally at Sully and catalogues his many shortcomings. It seemed viscious, especially when other characters started agreeing with the assessment. It truly made Sully a sorry character, which does not come out in the film at all. In fact, Sully's depiction in the movie makes him one of my folk heroes. Other than this short passage, I found the book very enjoyable and like the movie hated to see it end.
Rating:
Summary: Another classic by Russo
Review: Richard Russo hasn't published very many books, but he is quickly becoming one of the great authors of today. In Nobody's Fool, he writes another excellent tale of small-town life, a setting he revisits in his masterpiece, Empire Falls. The main character in Nobody's Fool is Donald Sullivan, known more commonly as Sully. Sully is something of a free spirit, rarely thinking beyond the moment; now that he's sixty, he's feeling the effects of his short-sightedness; he has many friends but few real relationships, even with his son and his off-and-on again lover. Indeed, the closest relationship he has is with his landlady. It's hard to describe this novel in terms of plot, since this is more a book about characters than a regular story. Russo is not interested in the standard beginning-middle-end structure of a novel; instead this book is almost pure middle. Plenty happens, but as in real life, few things are neatly resolved. Russo is a brilliant writer and makes all his characters multi-dimensional. There are no good guys or bad guys here; even Sully, a likeable enough fellow, has some definite flaws. The way all these characters interact - Sully, his landlady Miss Beryl, his friend/worshipper Rub, his foe/friend Carl and the dozen or so others - is what makes this book so much fun. There is humor here, but this is not a comic novel; instead, it is a novel that does not fit well into any category. For those whose tastes run beyond strict genre fiction, this is definitely a reccomended read. It just one indication of what a great writer Russo is.
Rating:
Summary: Welcome to Russo's world
Review: Russo's world is small-town America, a place that's hopeful, sad and oddly inviting. It's a place that will likely strike a chord with most every reader, regardless of where they grew up. The characters here are interesting and find a way to be likeable despite their many flaws. It's hard not to be swept in by the various storylines that ebb and flow throughout the novel. In lesser hands, the petty rivalries and failed relationships of our protagonist, Donald Sullivan, aka "Sully," wouldn't be so captivating. But as any reader of Russo's novels knows, the author has a way with his characters. Their dialogue is thoughtful and just witty enough not to be taken too seriously. "Nobody's Fool" takes you to Russo's world. And when you're finished reading this book, it's hard not to feel the urge to return for another visit.
Rating:
Summary: Great read!
Review: Simply put, this book is a winner. If you love character development, great dialogue and wit, you'll laugh and cry to the last page. Some writers don't know how to end a novel, and leave readers feeling cheated, unsatisfied, or disappointed. Although I was worried as I neared the end of the book, I had nothing to fear. Richard Russo, in my opinion, couldn't have ended this story any better.
Rating:
Summary: Russo's Best (so far)
Review: The setting is vintage Russo. A small, depressed town that time forgot where people tend to go through the motions of life, clinging to the hope of an economic miracle that never seems to happen. A coworker told me that this is the real America, there are more towns like this than there are the bustling big cities. Russo's towns come to life with his vivid descriptions and three dimensional characters. In "Nobody's Fool", set in the mid-1980's in upstate New York, we meet Sully, a mostly harmless guy who seems to raise the ire of about everybody he meets, with the exception of his best friend and his landlady. True, Sully can be a real pain in the neck, but he's oh so fun to read about, what with his troubles with his dad's ghost, his distant son, his sometime employer, his slow best friend, and the subplot about a spastic Doberman and the volley over a stolen snowblower. I could go on and on, but it's too complex to compress into a short review. Russo has a way of making you wonder exactly how things will turn out for our protagonists, since many of them paint themselves into a corner (see also Russo's "Straight Man".) This book is a thick read, but I wished it had gone on even longer. I did not find myself wishing that the book was about 100 pages shorter, or that there was a better interplay of action and dialogue. This book is Russo at top form, and it shows. Every page in this book is a delight and despite the heft, the story is over much too soon. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: One of the finest American novels
Review: There's something about this book... It grows on you. I've read it once and listened to the unabridged audiobook version, and it has a strange power. Nothing much happens in this novel, other than a few days in the life of Donald Sullivan, Sully, and the people who rotate around him in the small town of Bath, NY. But there is an Everyman quality in Sully's lackadaisical attitude toward life, his easy-going nature, his friendliness and grumpiness. He's the kind of person you'd never notice in a diner, but he's deeply ingrained in the life of this small community. Richard Russo has a talent for developing characters, through their actions and the subtle flashbacks that talk about their pasts. Sully is the quintessential Russo character, and is charming and amiable, even if he can be a pain in the ass. But like all humans, he has good and bad qualities, and this book, more than anything, shows us how human being act in good and not so good ways. This is such a good book it would go on my desert island list.
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