- Category: Books » Fiction & Literature » Literary
- Format: Paperback Learn more about the Paperback format using Tower WIKI.
- Publisher: Random House Inc
- ISBN: 0375701907
- WAPI (Tower ID): 100060588
- Release Date: June 1, 1998
- Average Customer Review: There are no customer reviews yet. Be the first to write a review!
- Tower.com Sales Rank: #52877 in Books (See Top 100 Books Bestsellers)
- #6238 in Fiction & Literature (See Top 100 Fiction & Literature Bestsellers)
- #518 in Literary (See Top 100 Literary Bestsellers)
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Product DescriptionRun a Quick Search on "Straight Man" by Richard Russo to Browse Related Products:Browse more products related to "Straight Man"Browse more products related to "Richard Russo"Review"...Russo...is interested in more than generating laughter, and 'Straight Man' strikes me as the funniest serious novel I have read since--well, maybe since 'Portnoy's Complaint'....Plot is a minor consideration....The novel's greatest pleasures derive not from any blazing impatience to see what happens next, but from pitch-perfect dialogue, persuasive characterization and a rich progression of scenes, most of them crackling with an impudent, screwball energy reminiscent of Howard Hawks's movies.... Always infusing the comedy are sadness and smothered panic." "We have seen something like the story of William Henry Devereaux, Jr. in the novels of Richard Ford, Tom McGuane, Louis B. Jones and Larry McMurtry, to name but a few. Yet Russo's 'Straight Man'--a departure from his acclaimed upstate New York novels, 'Nobody's Fool' and 'The Risk Pool'-- is so funny, so beautifully written, so fully imagined, it is easy to forgive its familiarity. His narrator's description of life at a mediocre Pennsylvania college is wicked and precise, and easily a metaphor for the mean-spirited insanity of most institutions....Russo is an easy, elegant writer. The book is beautifully plotted, and Russo makes you care about Devereaux and his fate. He also makes you laugh out loud." "[A] thoroughly irreverent, masterful satire of American life, circa 1997....A suer sign of Russo's skill is how difficult it is to convey the humor of this essentially dark novel....Russo, with his leisurely pacing, deliberate dialogue and keen eye for details, shows that realism and farce are not distant cousins, that absurdity can be successfully mined from the ordinary events of an ordinary life without diminishing its humor and truth." Mr. Russo's latest novel is designed to provide intelligent entertainment and does precisely that....One would not expect to find [his protagonist, a] sly boat-rocker, on a television newscast flourishing a live goose and threatening a massacre of ducks. Mr. Russo brings that and subsequent uproars off deftly, with crackling dialogue, persuasive characters, and amusing satire." "The author has never been funnier....Because so many American writers wind up teaching at universities, the faculty novel has become something of a commonplace, almost as inevitable as the coming-of-age narrative or the divorce chronicle. It is a testament to Russo's skill and originality that 'Straight Man' often seems as fresh as if it were the first of its sort." Publisher's noteIn this uproarious new novel, Richard Russo performs his characteristic high-wire walk between hilarity and heartbreak. Russos 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. In "the funniest serious novel . . . since "Portnoy's Complaint"" ("New York Times Book Review"), the bestselling author of "Nobody's Fool" introduces Henry Deveraux--reluctant chairman of the English department at a badly underfunded college--who's slowly coming to terms with his dysfunctional life. AnnotationA comic novel about a middle-aged novelist and teacher of creative writing at a Pennsylvania college ("the shallow end of the academic pool"), whose failures and cynicism threaten to destroy him, until he finds solace and meaning in the love of his family, his friends, and his work. If You Enjoy "Straight Man (Paperback)", May We Also Recommend:Customer Reviews for "Straight Man (Paperback)" by Richard Russo (Author)There are no customer reviews yet. Be the first to write a review! Fiction & Literature Bestselling BooksExplore More Great Tower Sales & Specials
| |||||||
|
