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50th out of 1,393 books
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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 pa...more
Paperback, 416 pages
Published
June 9th 1998
by Vintage
(first published January 1st 1997)
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The Richard Russo books I’ve 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 genre—it’s 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...more
Hilarious!!!! I imagine the guy from "House" playing this role in the film. Anyway, Russo is so funny and satiracle and wonderful and you will love and hate the main character because he will remind you of yourself in so many ways. Fabulous. It bothers me so much when people have such auper high expectations of a novel. IT IS FICTION, people, it isn't supposed to mimic real life, the characters aren't supposed to appear super realistic. The story is supposed to transport you to an...more
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I'm beginning to wonder if Russo is a one book man. First, I'm getting tired of his smarter than everyone snappy mouthed wife of protagonist role that ran throughout this and Bridge. Second, this has got to be the all time most unlikeable leading male ever, and sometimes that can be fun (I don't know why but I feel that is more true with heroines) but here it was simply irritating. Hank had a constant barrage of supposedly clever lines that fell flat and just made him out to be a jerk and mean...more
William Henry Devereux is a college professor and this novel focuses on the little group of professors with whom he works. They do not get along and are very competitive and afraid of being let go. Devereux and his family were the first to buy a lot and build a house on a hill in this western Pennsylvania town in the "rust belt".Then one by one, his
colleagues bought lots around him and became his neighbors even though
he moved outside of town to escape them. This book is...more
colleagues bought lots around him and became his neighbors even though
he moved outside of town to escape them. This book is...more
Saturday: This is the second day of my vacation, and my goal is to read a book a day during my 10 days off. Yesterday I read Beatrice and Virgil, today I am reading Straight Man. I will decide each morning which book to read, and every night I'll post my review. Of course, I won't be reading War and Peace during this little self-challenge. My goals are to get some overdue library books back to the library, and to make reading a priority for how I spend my time. Hint: No Law and Order reruns...more
Only 50 pages in and I've actually laughed out loud a couple of times. Good book, interesting concept. I'm not so much on the occasional condescending tone of the English professor, smarter than everyone else and looking down on the little people. But the protagonist's humility and friendly, approachable tone makes this overall a very nice read.
I'm blasting through this. I'm not really digging Russo's prose, per se, but I do love the story. I've found that I can discuss the plo...more
I'm blasting through this. I'm not really digging Russo's prose, per se, but I do love the story. I've found that I can discuss the plo...more
Hung
added it
A bitingly funny novel without ever being mean-spirited, Straight Man is a wonderful send-up of the foibles and inanities of academia. Most of my experiences in higher ed have been from the student side of things, but I've taught English Comp, attended numerous fiction writing workshops, and dealt with enough idiosyncratic faculty and administrators to be heartily amused (and somewhat frightened) by the accuracy of Russo's depiction, not only of characters, but of the ridiculous (and plain sad) ...more
William Henry Devereaux Jr. (Hank) is the chair of a bickering English department at West Central Pennsylvania University, beset with budget problems and long-standing personal grievances. It sounds like sort of a dry premise, but the events that unfold over the course of the book (which I don't think takes place in much more than a week or two) are surprisingly funny. And yet it's not a comic novel - the story is told with great sincerity.
The first thing I'll say is that, having rea...more
The first thing I'll say is that, having rea...more
This has got to be one of the quirkiest novels I've ever read!
Funniest sentence in the whole book:
"It's not an easy thing to be left holding a piece of fruit during introductions."
Other great lines:
"I'm not a _____________, but I can play that role."
"He was a small man. Left-handed. He walked with a limp. He served in India. So much is obvious, but beyond this I can tell you nothing except that he may have recently eaten aspar...more
Funniest sentence in the whole book:
"It's not an easy thing to be left holding a piece of fruit during introductions."
Other great lines:
"I'm not a _____________, but I can play that role."
"He was a small man. Left-handed. He walked with a limp. He served in India. So much is obvious, but beyond this I can tell you nothing except that he may have recently eaten aspar...more
Richard Russo doesn't have an incredibly broad range as far as areas of interest, but he does what he does very well. Aging men, smarter than those around them, living in dying towns and confronting the limits of their lives and the stupidity of those around them. "Straight Man" is part and parcel of these themes, focusing on a college professor running the English department of a small Pennsylvania University even though he doesn't want to and the department is falling a part in acrim...more
Ahhh. Never has a book made me feel so good about not going into academia.
William "Hank" Henry Devereaux, Jr. is the embattled head of a rivalry-tastic English department in a crumbling liberal arts college. Over the novel's four days, all heck breaks loose -- while his wife is out of town, Hank's department goes haywire, his daughter's marriage dissolves, his nose is mutilated by a coworker, he threatens to kill a goose on local television . . . oh, there's a drunken epi...more
William "Hank" Henry Devereaux, Jr. is the embattled head of a rivalry-tastic English department in a crumbling liberal arts college. Over the novel's four days, all heck breaks loose -- while his wife is out of town, Hank's department goes haywire, his daughter's marriage dissolves, his nose is mutilated by a coworker, he threatens to kill a goose on local television . . . oh, there's a drunken epi...more
This book recounts a week in the life of a professor of English in Railton, Pennsylvania. It is focused on the drama of his department, the university (facing extreme budget cuts), and his family. The book is meant to be humorous, and succeeds most of the time, though sometimes the events end up being a bit absurd. It was decently/mildly entertaining to read, especially as it mocks academe culture. Summed up, the book is about: “Only after we’ve done a thing do we know what we’ll do, and by then...more
I love books that are set on college campuses, especially if the characters are faculty. For instance, I like David Lodge’s Changing Places, a very transparent portrayal of UC Berkeley and its English faculty (love it!), and Michael Chabon’s Wonderboys, which is not so much about the faculty but about someone who happens to be a professor.
Straight Man is about a professor at a poorly funded college in Pennsylvania–and all the hilarity of its faculty and the transitions within his lif...more
Straight Man is about a professor at a poorly funded college in Pennsylvania–and all the hilarity of its faculty and the transitions within his lif...more
I have read this book at least seven times now, and I never tire of it. In fact, fairly recently, I was loaning a copy to a friend (since I always have one on hand), and thought I'd just glance through a few favorite passages, but ended up re-reading the whole thing _again_! I just can't get enough of this book. It helps, I suppose, that I was once ensconsed in academia, and so I've basically met everyone Russo lampoons so skillfully here. Don't get me wrong: I love the other novels Russo wrote ...more
Amanda
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
People with a twisted sense of humor
Recommended to Amanda by:
Bookmarks Magazine
Loved, loved, loved this book. The main character, Hank Devereaux is just a mess, but a likable one. On his academic campus, Hank is the rebel without a cause. He delights in being unpredictible and stirring things up to often hilarious results. However, there's also substance to the novel as Hank, who is nearing his 50th birthday, is coming to terms with the passing of youth and with his own mortality. This situation and the insight granted the reader by Hank's first person narrative makes...more
My favorite Russo book, edging past Empire Falls. Funny, insightful, and a wee bit sad, this gives the best view I've seen of college academia from the faculty point-of-view.
I personally love Richard Russo. I know he is not everyone's taste and sometimes I wonder how I can relate to his stories being as they usually revolve around a middle aged man in upstate NY or PA but I just can get so engrossed in his stories and characters. He's really funny and his characters have such life and color to them. This story revolves around one of the funniest main characters I have ever met, a middle aged English professor who takes absolutely nothing seriously yet somehow caus...more
"I'm thinking about doing a special topics course next year, maybe compare a couple of episodes of "Diff'rent Strokes" with "Huckleberry Finn." You know, like, the great American racist novel? Show how white attitudes haven't changed, how the basic fantasy's still intact today? June thinks it's a good idea."
"I thought you didn't want them reading books," I say. "Writing being a phallocentric activity and all that." --Richard Russo, "...more
"I thought you didn't want them reading books," I say. "Writing being a phallocentric activity and all that." --Richard Russo, "...more
Professor Henry Devereaux Jr. can't pee. He traverses his 3rd-rate Western Pennsylvania campus where he's a tenured professor of creative writing and the interim chair of his dysfunctional English apartment and thinks about peeing. The English department and his urethra aren't the only thing amiss here, however. Devereaux's nose has been lacerated by the protruding end of a spiral bound notebook wielded by the department's only female poet. Devereaux can't get a budget and rhetorically threat...more
Empire Falls by Russo was good. I wanted a book for the plane coming back from Portland and this was the best of Goodwill's offerings. I've enjoyed it a lot. William Henry Deveraux is the temporary head of a dysfunctional English department in a run-down town in Pennsylvania. Hank's father deserted his family and returns. His mother has retired to the small town and is courted by Mr. Purty, whose choice of words is just terrific! He and his mother write editorials to the school newspaper....more
Christopher F.
added it
This was touted to me as the best "campus novel" so far, and I have to say that it is a good candidate for that, with the possible exception of Lodge's Trading Places. One of the challenges of writing about, say, a university English department is not descending immediately into broad comedy that only those with experience in English departments will find credible. There are a few such moments here, which lapse in the direction of some of the sillier moments in, e.g., Hynes's The Lec...more
Sure, he's quick as a well oiled piston, that Henry Deveraux. This runs the engine smoothy in the first half. Then things start to lose their heat in the midst of repetitive bickering. Even my own position in the quasi-ivory tower of college teaching did not increase my tolerance of the departmental backbiting. If anything, it made me thankful that I'm not tenured. Especially if one was to resort to sweating in a five foot space amongst the rafters over a meeting to decide the fate of your depar...more
Eric Barber
added it
This was my first book by Russo and am I ever glad I had the opportunity to discover him!
Russo's writing reminds me of an American Martin Amis, but without the abstractness in the writing.
He is very funny, the main Character, Hank Devereaux is a hilarious character, especially as he has a self deprecating attitude during the entire story.
This is the story of a university professor and a mad couple of months in his scholastic life in a university in the Pennsylvania rust belt. He believes he is ...more
Russo's writing reminds me of an American Martin Amis, but without the abstractness in the writing.
He is very funny, the main Character, Hank Devereaux is a hilarious character, especially as he has a self deprecating attitude during the entire story.
This is the story of a university professor and a mad couple of months in his scholastic life in a university in the Pennsylvania rust belt. He believes he is ...more
First person thoughts, conversations, and incomplete mini stories. I did not find it funny or witty. I was not entertained.
STORY BRIEF:
Told in first person by Hank Devereaux. He is chair of the English Dept. at a university in Pennsylvania. He talks about and has conversations with many different people in his life: his wife, father, daughter, other university professors, employees, students, and neighbors. Several people are divorced. His daughter is separated from her ...more
STORY BRIEF:
Told in first person by Hank Devereaux. He is chair of the English Dept. at a university in Pennsylvania. He talks about and has conversations with many different people in his life: his wife, father, daughter, other university professors, employees, students, and neighbors. Several people are divorced. His daughter is separated from her ...more
Years before I read Straight Man, I had picked up Richard Russo’s earlier novel Nobody's Fool on a whim (read: movie was coming out) and had encountered something I hadn't before. Up until the point, I had been mostly a genre reader. Nobody's Fool, though, was something different: no one was murdered, no creatures running afoul, and nothing hidden in the shadows. It was just a book about a man who had thoroughly screwed up his life and, now that his son was heading in the same direction, decid...more
I spent the first half of the book cringing and waiting for a train wreck - which keeps me from a full 5-star rating. However, that's more telling about me, since I associated quite closely with our main character's wise guy, flip and clever (a girl can try!) dialogue. Putting up the mirror was not so pretty and I was feeling a bit full of William Henry Devereaux, Jr. However, when I realized that life in the flip lane isn't always about train wrecks or insincerity, I began to thoroughly indul...more
A very funny satire skewering academia. William "Hank" Devereaux is the interim head of an incredibly dysfunctional English department at a struggling Pennsylvania state school. Pretty much a prankster through and through, he's beset on all sides by the administration, hateful neighbors, and of course his dissatisfied department, undergoing mishap after mishap, threatening to kill a goose on national television, and laughing all the way.
"Straight Man" is full of m...more
"Straight Man" is full of m...more
This was a fun, funny read that surprised me with its wit and its excellent writing. Hank Devereaux is an English Professor at a small public university in small town Pennsylvania and he's spent most of his life trying not to take life too seriously. The prologue set the stage for this to be a humorous book and I pretty much fell in love with the book during those first five pages. I laughed out loud while reading it and asked my husband if I could please read it to him (he refused, since he...more
The main character, Lucky Hank, is a burned out smart-ass who chairs an English department at a miserable university in a miserable town with miserable faculty members who fight all of the time.
Read the other reviews for full details of the story, but in a nutshell I have found it hard to relate to the characters. They don't seem real and fully developed to me, and I haven't developed a connection and an affection for them. I am tired of Hank's dismissive response to everything. Hi...more
Read the other reviews for full details of the story, but in a nutshell I have found it hard to relate to the characters. They don't seem real and fully developed to me, and I haven't developed a connection and an affection for them. I am tired of Hank's dismissive response to everything. Hi...more
This was the most humorous books I ever read! That's why I gave it 5 stars. Normally, I don't find books necessarily "funny" but his humor is clever, intelligent, and had me in stitches. It's dry and subtle. It's a story about a 49-year-old English professor who's not in touch with himself, but he's bright and moral, but a wise-ass... still, he's a good guy. He comes to terms with aging and dealing with people. I'm not one who needs "action action action" in a book or m...more
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Richard Russo (born July 15, 1949) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist. Born in Johnstown, New York, and raised in nearby Gloversville, he earned a B.A. (1967), a M.F.A. (1980), and a Ph.D. (1979) from the University of Arizona.
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“Which is why we have spouses and children and parents and colleagues and friends, because someone has to know us better than we know ourselves. We need them to tell us. We need them to say, "I know you, Al. You are not the kind of man who.”
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