The Risk Pool

Rating:
Summary: An exercise in ennui
Review: THE RISK POOL is a coming-of-age story set in the upstate New York town of Mohawk. It begins in 1947 with the birth of a son, Ned, to Sam and Jenny Hall. However, Sam soon does what he does best, which is walk away, i.e. from his family responsibilities. Ned's memory and relationship with his Dad really begins at age 6, when Sam abruptly appears and takes Ned on an unauthorized fishing trip. Returning his son to Jenny disheveled, grubby and afflicted with poison ivy, Mom empties her father's old service revolver into Sam's car. Sam then makes himself scarce again until Ned is age 12, at which time Jenny has a nervous breakdown that lands her in an institution for two years, during which time the boy lives with Dad in a converted office above a department store in deteriorating downtown Mohawk. After Jenny is released back to the world, Ned again resides with her until he goes off to college in Tucson. At age 24, he returns to Mohawk for a period, dividing his time between both parents. Finally, he returns to Mohawk at age 34 from his home in Manhattan. By then, Ned's mother has remarried and moved to California, and the Old Man is dying.

THE RISK POOL is narrated in the first person by Ned, and is divided into four unequal parts corresponding to Ned's maternal grandfather's description of Mohawk's four seasons: Fourth of July, Mohawk Fair, Eat the Bird, and Winter. It's not so much the story of Ned as that of his wary relationship with his irresponsible father, who works at road construction in the summer and spends the winter and his earnings on horse racing, billiards and booze. Indeed, Ned is nicknamed "Sam's Kid" by his Dad's friends and hangers-on. Jenny is rarely acknowledged. Sam has only two good qualities: he loves his son (in his own peculiar way), and he's generous to a fault with money (when he has any).

Author Richard Russo's mastery of dialogue and descriptive detail is evident. But, for me, it was a dispassionate read. The characters are only marginally interesting at best, and I never liked (or disliked) any of them. Russo's prose imbues Ned with something akin to listlessness. He always seems mired in ennui, yet lacks the energy to do anything about it. Even his first love affair is remarkably lacking in passion. Like his father, Ned takes the path of least resistance. By the time I was two-thirds through this 478 page paperback, I was feeling ennui myself. I prodded myself to finish, hoping for an ending that was clever, or at least one that left me admiring Ned more. It never happened.

Since THE RISK POOL is technically well done, and realizing that my disenchantment with it is oh so subjective, I'm giving it a marginal thumbs up, i.e. three stars. This is compared to a much better coming-of-age story such as John Grisham's A PAINTED HOUSE, which had characters so engaging that it begs for a sequel. If THE RISK POOL has a sequel, I won't bother.

Rating:
Summary: Russo's Second Best Work
Review: I liked this one almost as much as Empire Falls. To tell you any more about this book would ruin its narcotic power.

I'm Franz Hemingbeck...

Rating:
Summary: Russo's Writing Is Such A Treat
Review: Although I have read and thoroughly enjoyed Richard Russo's last three books, I tend to forget after a while what a treat it is to read his beautifully crafted writing. The Risk Pool is the story of Ned Hall and his coming of age in Mohawk, NY. Ned's father Sam first saw his son after being kidnapped from a poker game by his father-in-law at gun point ("Deal me out a couple of hands") and taken to the hospital where his wife lay with young Ned on her breast. It must have been, as young Ned recounts, "a tender moment".

Sam Hall, we are told at the beginning knew what he wanted to do when the war he was serving in was over. He wanted to drink and whore and play the horses. That was a plan that Sam dedicated himself to for the rest of his life.

What Sam's life plan does to the lives of those around him as he bounces through life like a pin ball is described through the eyes of his son, Ned. It is funny, honest, pathetic, touching, and outrageous. It is also compelling. The man who took Sam to first see his son with a pistol in his ear, always said there were four seasons in Mohawk. Fourth of July, Mohawk Fair, Eat the Bird and Winter and the book is divided into sections bearing those names as Ned grows and the story unwinds.

Give yourself a treat and read this book.

Rating:
Summary: If only Russo could write faster....
Review: As with all of his books, you end this one wanting to see the characters live on for a thousand pages more. A must read.

Rating:
Summary: Must Read for Every Dysfunctional Family
Review: If you have a healthy relationship with your parents, then you'll probably think The Risk Pool is the most unrealistic book ever written. However, if your family more resembles the Simpsons than the Cleavers, you'll be able to sympathize with Ned Hall's strained relations with his parents.

Basically Ned's mom cracks up after her relationship with Ned's dad Sam falls apart and a failed affair with a Catholic priest. The result is that even after she gets out of the mental asylum, Ned has to feed her a steady stream of overly-optimistic lies to keep her from falling apart. Sam, on the other hand, is not really a bad guy, but he's no saint either. He gambles, drinks too much, gets into fights, but he's not dangerous. Ned goes from an altar boy when living with his mother to a petty thief while living with his father after his mom's nervous breakdown. Ultimately, Ned leaves home and ends up in NYC as a book editor, trying to not become like his father.

Much like "Empire Falls", Russo's Pulitzer-winning novel that came out over a decade after "Risk Pool", there is a set of well-imagined, very fleshed-out characters which makes a poorly-defined story extremely entertaining. Russo leaves the reader to make their own conclusions about the purpose of the story, which is kind of annoying if you aren't up to the task.

While not the best-written book, The Risk Pool is a funny, engrossing novel that will keep you reading and leave you wanting more at the end. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Any description would make the book sound schmaltzy
Review: 1. What is the text about? A coming-of-age of sorts but without all the cliched mushy stuff that comes with it. It takes place in a declining upstate New York town-it's about that as well.
2. What is good about it? The book is funny and smart with characters who seem real. My favorite fiction book of the 1990s....
3. What is not so good about it? Not much. He does not portray women nearly as strongly as he does men. Sometimes he gets a little cute with his concluding sentences.
4. Who might like it? Everyone, I think. I've given out more than three dozen copies-everyone seems to love it. People who like Jane Smiley, Ann Beattie, Mona Simpson-but this book is much better.
5. Personal bias: I lived in upstate New York for a year and a half and I'm familiar with the area.

Rating:
Summary: .
Review: This is an excellent book in which you really get to know the characters. If you like books with strong characterization, read this one.

Rating:
Summary: Very entertaining
Review: This is the first book I've read by Richard Russo, and I'm delighted to have discovered this new author.

Lovely characters, all very well fleshed, even if they appear in the book for a very short period of time. The story is meandering, serving only to illustrate the relationship between Ned Hall and his father. But that's fine - the people we meet along the way make it a wonderful journey.

I enjoyed this book greatly. I'm looking forward to reading more of Russo's work (and meeting more of his terrific characters)

Rating:
Summary: It doesn't get any better than this.
Review: The Risk Pool is brilliant.

This is the story of the relationship between a wayward father and his only son told over a 30-year span. Sam Hall is the "black sheep" of a small, upper New York State town that's hit the end of the line economically. Sam lives on the wrong side of the tracks in a place where there's hardly a right side of the tracks. The town, like many of it's ilk, is inhabited by a set of characters who are down, & mostly out, but nevertheless hanging in there somehow. Sam, estranged from his wife, and in and out of town between his tussles with local authority, nevertheless manages to keep up a sort of on-again-off-again relationship with his son, Ned, of sufficient strength that Sam dominates Ned's existence even through his many absences.

Russo's genius is his ability to truly capture the feel for the bypassed urban landscape and the people who inhabit such places. His characters are so vividly drawn that one finds oneself sympathetic even to those we loath to a large degree. This is an aspect that appears in all Russo's novels to date. In the Risk pool, however, Russo also deftly renders the dynamics of the father-son relationship with it's equal mix of attraction and repulsion. An equally deft exploration of the dynamics of male friendship/bonding in general is also rendered.

I particularly appreciated the ending--not usually the strong point of a Russo novel--with it's imagery of having both come full circle--this is a story that ends where it begins, as does all son-father sagas, both fictional and real.

Russo's writing style is elaborate and dense, and can be slow moving, though not in any sort of negative sense--this is one of those books you hate to put down--but rather from being rich in texture; as rich in texture as the life we'd like to live.

The Risk Pool stands, in the end, as the epitome of the prototypical small town America coming-of-age story.E veryone should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Anywhere
Review: Mohawk, New York could be any small town in the United States. People out of jobs, bar dwellers, heart attacks...every town has them and no one likes to talk about them.

This is, perhaps, one of the best novels I have read. Russo combines wit and dimension to his characters...so much that they become real.

Ned Hall has the dull life of a boy living with his mother when his father interrupts everything. Told from Ned's point of view, he walks us through the simplicity of his father's drunken stupor to the complexity of his teenage feelings...and everywhere inbetween.

The writing isn't filled with thesaurus words, rather words common people identify with everyday.

All in all, this book shows the reader a life in the life of a young boy. Parents estranged and town falling apart. And it holds you in for the whole ride.