Straight Man: A Novel
by Richard Russo
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Book Summary Information
Author: Richard RussoEdition: Paperback
Published: 1998-06-09
ISBN: 0375701907
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Straight Man: A Novel
Book Review: the best Russo
Summary: 4 Stars
***** I tried to revise my reviow from 4 to 5 stars, but the editor won't allow that. I have read several books by Richard Russo now, and this is my favorite. It is really funny. The situations Hank gets himself into are comical. Having been an English major myself, I enjoyed the send up of campus politics. This is a fun read.
Summary of Straight Man: A Novel
First Jane Smiley came out of the comedy closet with Moo, a campus satire par excellence, and now Richard Russo has gotten in on the groves-of-academe game. Straight Man is hilarious sport, with a serious side. William Henry Devereaux Jr., is almost 50 and stuck forever as chair of English at West Central Pennsylvania University. It is April and fear of layoffs--even among the tenured--has reached mock-epic proportions; Hank has yet to receive his department budget and finds himself increasingly offering comments such as "Always understate necrophilia" to his writing students. Then there are his possible prostate problems and the prospect of his father's arrival. Devereaux Sr., "then and now, an academic opportunist," has always been a high-profile professor and a low-profile parent.Though Hank tries to apply William of Occam's rational approach (choose simplicity) to each increasingly absurd situation, and even has a dog named after the philosopher, he does seem to cause most of his own enormous difficulties. Not least when he grabs a goose and threatens to off a duck (sic) a day until he gets his budget. The fact that he is also wearing a fake nose and glasses and doing so in front of a TV camera complicates matters even further. Hank tries to explain to one class that comedy and tragedy don't go together, but finds the argument "runs contrary to their experience. Indeed it may run contrary to my own." It runs decidedly against Richard Russo's approach in Straight Man, and the result is a hilarious and touching novel.
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.
Satire, Classic Books
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