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Straight Man

Richard Russo

Paperback | Pages: 391 pages

Rating: 4.02 | 23574 Users | 2411 Reviews

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Original Title:	Straight Man
ISBN:	0375701907 (ISBN13: 9780375701900)
Edition Language:	English
Characters:	William Henry Devereaux, Jr
Setting:	Pennsylvania(United States)

Relation Toward Books Straight Man

In this uproarious new novel, Richard Russo performs his characteristic high-wire walk between hilarity and heartbreak. Russo's protagonist is William Henry Devereaux, Jr., the reluctant chairman of the English department of a badly underfunded college in the Pennsylvania rust belt. Devereaux's reluctance is partly rooted in his character--he is a born anarchist-- and partly in the fact that his department is more savagely divided than the Balkans. In the course of a single week, Devereaux will have his nose mangled by an angry colleague, imagine his wife is having an affair with his dean, wonder if a curvaceous adjunct is trying to seduce him with peach pits, and threaten to execute a goose on local television.  All this while coming to terms with his philandering father, the dereliction of his youthful promise, and the ominous failure of certain vital body functions. In short, Straight Man is classic Russo--side-splitting and true-to-life, witty, compassionate, and impossible to put down.

Be Specific About Containing Books Straight Man

Title	:	Straight Man
Author	:	Richard Russo
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 391 pages
Published	:	June 9th 1998 by Vintage (first published January 1st 1997)
Categories	:	Fiction. Humor. Contemporary. Novels. Academic. Academia. Literature. Literary Fiction

Rating Containing Books Straight Man

Ratings: 4.02 From 23574 Users | 2411 Reviews

Column Containing Books Straight Man

The Richard Russo books Ive read have all taken place in decaying New York mill towns. Straight Man varies that by taking place in a decaying Pennsylvania railroad town. Actually, it differs from his other books quite significantly by belonging to another genreits a campus comedy, a genre I associate with writers like David Lodge. Russo does a hell of a good job with it, as would be expected. William Henry Devereaux is the creative writing professor at a small state college, a place where his

This reading group pick is Richard Russo's fourth novel. William Henry Devereaux, Jr is the chairman of the English department at a small Pennsylvania university. Campus politics, budget issues and changing mores should make Will's job stressful but he appears to be above it all with his witty, carefree but rebellious manner. Is he though? He wanted to be a novelist yet only has one slim book from his younger years to his credit. He has huge daddy issues, a detachment from his grown daughters,

Richard Russo is one of my favorite authors. His books are always embedded in forlorn towns, circling around Dilapidated Central, suffering blue-collar havens, podunk as can be, with sell-by-dates splashed all over it. The people, towns, souls and minds have lost their initial charm while slowly sliding into obscurity. The atmosphere is always a bit depressing. The stories are always slow-moving, and satirical social commentary becomes the mainstay of all the conversations everywhere. FROM THE

Satire that feels really accurate. This is basically every older male chair of an English (or any other liberal arts) department.

I have long avoided academic satires for two main reasons. The first is that I myself am an academic of sorts and I already know how ridiculous I am. Second: the genre has always seemed to me like shooting fish (with PhDs) in a barrel.But now, I'm going on the academic job market this year, so I've decided some comic relief about my chosen profession might be a good thing. The main reason being: if I can tell myself on some level that it's all a giant cluster-cuss of ego-surfing solipsistic

I have read enough of Richard Russos novels to become very familiar with his style of writing and storytelling. The types of characters he creates, the settings in which he places his characters, how he builds his characters and the type of conflict he creates in his stories. While some level of predictability comes with this familiarity, I continue to enjoy Russos work. For one thing, he makes me laugh. I also enjoy his characters and find myself rooting for them despite their insistence on

"What ails people is never simple, and William of Occam, who provided mankind with a beacon of rationality by which to view the world of physical circumstance, knew better than to apply his razor to the irrational, where entities multiply like strands of a virus under a microscope"Straight Man is the fourth novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, Richard Russo. William Henry Devereaux Jnr, (Hank) at almost fifty, is interim chairman of the English department at the (chronically