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Straight Man

Richard Russo (Goodreads Author)

4.01 · Rating details · 24,503 ratings · 2,511 reviews

William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University. Over the course of a single convoluted week, he threatens to execute a duck, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers that his secretary writes better fi ...more

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Paperback, 391 pages

Published June 9th 1998 by Vintage (first published January 1st 1997)

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Sep 04, 2017 Jim Fonseca rated it really liked it

Shelves: academic-novel, american-authors, humor

Another good story from Richard Russo – I previously reviewed Empire Falls.

This one is studded with humor. It’s really an academic novel, centered on a 49-year old professor (mid-life crisis?) at a lower-tier university, perhaps a branch campus, in a by-passed town in Pennsylvania. He is in the “sandwich generation” with a wife, whom he loves, who is a school principal, and two daughters. One married daughter lives in town and they worry about her financial situation and that she might be in an ...more

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Dec 14, 2020 Robin rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2020, american, literary-fiction, humour

For the same reason that I love reading David Sedaris, I loved reading Straight Man: humour. For the same reason that I enjoyed Less, I would recommend Straight Man: literary optimism. Both are rare birds... at least, on my bookshelf. Since when does a great book written by a serious writer not only offer laughs but also a gentle landing?

To be fair, it almost seems like I go out of my way to avoid gentle landings. I *like* getting crash-tested, on a literary level, at least. But once in a while For the same reason that I love reading David Sedaris, I loved reading Straight Man: humour. For the same reason that I enjoyed Less, I would recommend Straight Man: literary optimism. Both are rare birds... at least, on my bookshelf. Since when does a great book written by a serious writer not only offer laughs but also a gentle landing?

To be fair, it almost seems like I go out of my way to avoid gentle landings. I *like* getting crash-tested, on a literary level, at least. But once in a while it's good to be reminded of the absurdity of life, and that not everyone dies at the end, not everyone effs their brother, or cheats on their spouse, or languishes, lifelong under the thumb of something or other.

This book provides such a reminder. But there's nothing cheesy going on here, and it's written by a Pulitzer prize winning author, so you can sort of relax in that knowledge, for what it's worth.

So, Straight Man. Set in the often inane world of academia, William Henry Devereaux Jr (Hank), enters his mid life crisis. This is witnessed by his colleagues, a real raft of characters who are vying for security and prestige in the liberal arts department of a middling Pennsylvanian university. Hank's narrative voice is wry, clever, ironic, and plain funny. He's got mommy AND daddy issues, he's got wife issues, he's got father-daughter issues, all this on top of his sizeable professional issues... and on top of THIS, he has to pee, but can't.

It sometimes gets a bit silly, but ah, just go for the ride. You've been living through a pandemic. Lean back, un-furrow your brows, and let that sound ripple out of your throat. Laughter, it feels good.

“I hear you don't write any more," he says...
"Not true," I inform him. "You should see the margins of my student papers."
"Not the same as writing a book though, right?"
"Almost identical," I assure him. "Both go largely unread.”

And then, when the laughter dies down, bask in the warmth of a world that has righted itself, achieved the correct axis. Like in any good comedy, the chaos has turned into order, and everything feels as it should. Which is weird, given the current circumstances. But these days, we'll take what we can get, am I right? ...more

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Aug 23, 2013 B the BookAddict rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE

Recommended to B the BookAddict by: moi! aren't I clever?

Shelves: fiction, favorites, favourite-authors, bury-me-with-this-book, best-of-the-best

Dear Mr Russo,

I've just finishedStraight Man; the fourth of your books that I've read including Empire Falls. I thought Empire Falls was pretty brilliant but in my mind, you should have won a Pulitzer for Straight Man. I would have voted for Straight Man but damn, I'm not on the panel, but if I was, I'd vote for Straight Man.

You know, I had to wait ages to read it; my library didn't have it. So I ordered it from that place with the same name as where the guy who may or may not have shot Kennedy ...more

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Sep 12, 2017 Margitte rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, american-author, drama, satire, 2017-read, american-novel, fiction, comedy

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 B ...more

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Apr 01, 2019 Algernon (Darth Anyan) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019

Life's a duck!
... or a goose?
Whatever!
Sometimes you just have to grab it by the throat and give it a good shake if you want to make sense of it.

As I tell my students, all good stories begin with character, and Teddy's rendering of the events fails entirely to render what it felt like to be William Henry Devereaux, Jr., as the events were taking place.

Richard Russo strikes [gold] again!
I definitely managed to get into the mind of Hank, an English teacher at a small university in Railton, Penns Life's a duck!
... or a goose?
Whatever!
Sometimes you just have to grab it by the throat and give it a good shake if you want to make sense of it.

As I tell my students, all good stories begin with character, and Teddy's rendering of the events fails entirely to render what it felt like to be William Henry Devereaux, Jr., as the events were taking place.

Richard Russo strikes [gold] again!
I definitely managed to get into the mind of Hank, an English teacher at a small university in Railton, Pennsylvania, as he goes through a midlife crisis. ( ... promotion in an institution like West Central Pennsylvania University was a little bit like being proclaimed the winner of a shit-eating contest. ) Hank's story is similar in many ways to those of other Russo protagonists that had won me over with their messy, humorous, heart-wrenching attempts to make sense of life, love, family, friends, aging, failure and everything in between

Odd details and unexpected points of view are the stuff of which vivid stories are made.

What makes William Henry Devereaux, Jr special in this typical Russo panoply of underdogs living in decrepit blue-collar towns, is his academic background. As a teacher of creative writing, Hank is allowed to include in his narrative and share with the reader a few of his writer's tricks, a glimpse at the way he makes storytelling an art form.

He misses all the details that even an out-of-practice storyteller like me would not only mention but place in the foreground. He's like a tone-deaf man trying to sing, sliding between notes, tapping his foot arhythmically, hoping his exuberance will make up for not bothering to establish a key.

Teddy is a fellow English teacher, an earnest fellow, more than a little in love with Hank's wife, but his major failure is a lack of sophistication in his narrative presentation. Hank, with a published novel under his belt, although one written more than two decades previously, is ever ready to correct him.

I don't see how you could 'not' kid about love and still claim to have a sense of humor.

Here I think is one key to unlock any of the Richard Russo novels: despair is always waiting right around the corner, ready to wreck our lives, and the only way to deal with it is to laugh in its face. Hank deliberately chooses the role of buffoon as he tries to steer his deeply divided English department through a perfect storm of budget cuts, staff cuts and failed dreams. Like the decrepit car he is driving, Hank feels his life is sliding backward on an icy slope instead of climbing up to his house on a hill.

My spiritual position is the outfield. True, I might be a good target for shortstops to throw at, but I'm most myself ranging in the outfield after fly balls.

Russo is a master of the complex metaphor, always finding an odd, surprising, funny angle to illustrate his hero's struggle. It could be an old car, a baseball game, a poor goose on the campus pond, a bloody nose from an outraged poet. Hank seems to do a lot of leg pulling and clowning, especially in the beginning of the novel, but you can always feel the underlying despair at reaching fifty years of age and asking yourself what had you done with your life, with your youthful aspirations.

In English departments the most serious competition is for the role of straight man.

Humor is one way to deal with this despair, and Hank has turned his goofing into an art form, but there comes a time when you can no longer dodge the incoming balls (I've slipped into baseball lingo myself, and I don't even know the rules of the game). So what do you do when the going gets tough? Flee from town or turn back and fight? Play the clown or the straight man?

We might manage to be happy, even here, if the faces around us were new, but we have to look at each other every day, and this reminds us of ourselves and all the opportunities we found compelling reasons not to seize.

The other tool Hank has in his arsenal is William of Occam, a reminder that we need to focus on what is the most important thing in our life, and eliminate the distractions, the false paths, the unnecessary complications. All fine and dandy in theory, but not so easy to apply when it comes to a human heart.

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.

Like it happened with all my previous novels by Richard Russo, writing a review is a hard task because there are so many things that relate directly to my personal experiences, so many moments of laughter in the face of adversity or of tenderness from the most unexpected directions. I feel like I would need to write ten reviews instead of one. It's not only about Hank. Every little side character in the story deserves at least a mention, to have his or her own struggle remembered – estranged parents, daughters leaving the family home, colleagues facing their own disillusions, neighbours who are more than comic relief.

The task he has chosen for himself, of wooing my mother with a bright red pickup truck, a Patsy Cline tape, and a string of malapropisms, is ample justification to me for not taking the world too seriously, its relentless heartbreak notwithstanding.

Richard Russo writes variations of the same novel over and over again, but this novel is all encompassing of our modern life, of our economic and personal failures, of our endurance and of our hopes for the future.

Other people make their peace with who they are, what they've become. Why can't I?

Peace is usually to be found in the aftermath of a war. In this present novel, the war between the factions of the Railton University English Department ends in a compromise between generations, between the firebrands we were in our early years and the limitations of our older selves.

Growing old, as someone once remarked, is not for sissies, but age is not the issue so much as diminishment.

I have mentioned humor and Occam's razor as tools to deal with the hard knocks from life. The third one for Hank, and for us, is literature / art. Hank's parents were both bookworms, so absorbed in their fictional worlds and in their academic careers, that they became distant and distracted from their own son. Hank's revenge was to become a writer instead of a reader and critic of novels, probably also a way to impress his parents and finally get noticed. But when he falls in love it is with another English teacher. His daughters may be shunning an academic career: My daughter has never found a moment's comfort in a book, and this provokes in me a complex reaction. . Julie swears she will not become a 'fool of books', but is this the reaction of a rebellious teenager or a way to get noticed. There are patterns and themes everywhere, but if I were to pick only one it is the story of Rachel, the department secretary with literary aspirations. It's maybe the truest path to redemption for Hank. He may not write another novel, but he can guide the next novelist along.

That's about all I have to teach her, since the requisite heart, voice, vision, and sense of narrative are already there, learned intuitively.

also, on the subject of being accepted for publication for the first time:

She will consider the possibility that the leaky vessel of her talent may be seaworthy after all. Instead of being dictated to by the waves of doubt that threaten to swamp all navigators, she'll turn bravely into the wind. The moment she does is the moment I envy.

I never wrote or published anything myself, but if I can steer somebody else towards a good read, I believe I can be at peace with myself and with my love for the written word. Thanks, Richard Russo. ...more

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Sep 04, 2014 Jonathan K rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 24, 2009 Brad rated it liked it

Shelves: personal-mythology, meta-review

I remember almost nothing about Richard Russo's Straight Man. I imagine I laughed a couple of times, and I think I enjoyed the reading experience, but there is only one specific thing that I remember from the book itself. More on that later, though, because I want to talk about the peripheral things I remember about Straight Man.

I remember reading it for a Literary Theory class (my first class at my new University) with one of my all time favourite profs, Dr. W---. He admitted, very early into t I remember almost nothing about Richard Russo's Straight Man. I imagine I laughed a couple of times, and I think I enjoyed the reading experience, but there is only one specific thing that I remember from the book itself. More on that later, though, because I want to talk about the peripheral things I remember about Straight Man.

I remember reading it for a Literary Theory class (my first class at my new University) with one of my all time favourite profs, Dr. W---. He admitted, very early into the book, that he hadn't read it before. His wife is a librarian, you see, and he always let her pick a wild card book for whichever class he happened to be teaching, something she was sure he'd like, something she thought would be appropriate. She picked Straight Man because Dr. W--- was the chair of an English Dept. in a seriously underfunded university where he played chief negotiator and neutral observer to a pack of bickering tenured maniacs. He apologized for the choice, realizing that it wasn't the best book to apply literary theory too, but he kept using it and did a damn fine job.

Meanwhile, in the back of the classroom, I made friends with a wonderful woman named MM (you didn't think I was going to give her complete name did you? What's the fun in that?). She was in her early fifties, a southern belle of the old school, and I discovered that she was also the secretary of the English Dept. She audited a class every semester, just for fun, and Dr. W---'s class was her freebie. Why is this important? Well, MM took a liking to me, recommended me to Dr. W---, and I found myself as the Grad Assistant for the next two years, and that's where I met a woman, the Undergrad Assistant, who I loved deeply and passionately.

Furthermore, every time I've taken a pee in a public restroom (since I read the book over a decade ago) I have had a mindflash of the main character, HD, comparing the power of his stream to the young bucks that pee next to him. I can't take a public pee without thinking of the book, nor can I take a public pee without comparing my stream with whomever's around. And sadly, my stream doesn't have the power it used to. Now I worry about kidney stones and prostate exams and future erectile dysfunction, and all because this damned book has made the power of my stream a permanent obsession (and in case you're wondering, this is the ONE specific thing I remember from Straight Man). What the hell is up with that?!

As for what I think about Straight Man...well...who cares? I doubt Russo would care what I think, even if he knew me. What matters, at least what I think should matter, is that just the sight of Straight Man's cover, that cheesy red thing with the drake (or is it a gander?) brings back memories of Dr. W---, MM and that girl. And every pee I take calls to mind that cheesy red cover with the gander (or is it a drake?). That's gotta be good enough for any author.

Shit...it would be for me. ...more

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Oct 27, 2012 ☮Karen rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, challenges, read-in-2016

3.5 stars.
This had parts I found interesting, some very funny scenes, some compassionate, and some where I tuned out. Russo's humor is wry and masculine. Often jokes are made at the expense of others (students, females, academic colleagues, and academia alike are targeted), but also self-deprecating. I adore him, but will probably always compare all his works to Empire Falls, a tough one to live up to. IMO. ...more

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May 26, 2018 Betsy Robinson rated it really liked it

William Henry “Hank” Devereaux is temporary chair of the humanities department of a bad community college with budget problems in Railton, PA. Hank is a scamp, a man who can’t seem to take anything seriously, and therefore this book is sometimes hilarious—a romp through the inane political infighting of academia from a man in the throes of a midlife crisis.

Either I’m one of these people or I’m not. . . . I should either throw in my lot with them, live among them, my friends and colleagues, or ta

...more

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May 08, 2017 Albert rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

I have read enough of Richard Russo’s 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 Russo’s work. For one thing, he makes me laugh. I also enjoy his characters and find myself rooting for them despite their insistence on r ...more

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Aug 28, 2007 Emily rated it it was amazing

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 another time and ...more

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Jul 28, 2014 Marianne rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Marianne by: B the BookAddict

"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 underf "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 underfunded) West Central Pennsylvania University in Railton. A certain week in April sees him enduring quite a variety of trials, both mental and physical. It all starts in a meeting where he is nasally mangled by a colleague. Or does it? Perhaps his absent father has had more influence that he admits. Russo subjects his protagonist to bouts of overactive imagination, the suspicions and petty politics of colleagues, his students' decided lack of promise, his daughter's marital problems, a tempting flirtation with a younger woman, and an irritating (and possibly worrying) deterioration in the function of a certain organ. Ducks, geese, a TV news crew, the local jail, a hot tub, peaches and their pits, a dog called Occam and a missing ceiling tile complete the picture.

Hank holds his colleagues in disdain ("You know the kind of company I keep. If it weren't for erroneous conclusions, these people would never arrive at any at all"), is critical of his friends ("He misses all the details than even an out-of-practice storyteller like me would not only mention but place in the foreground. He's like a tone-deaf man trying to sing, sliding between notes, tapping his foot arhythmically, hoping his exuberance will make up for not bothering to establish a key"), and loves the wife who knows him entirely too well ("Promise me you'll act surprised" is one of Lily's favourite, supposedly harmless pretences.........."It hurts my feelings to pretend to be this dumb," I tell my wife. "Don't you care what people think of me?" But she just smiles. "They won't notice," she always explains. "It'll blend in with all the times you're genuinely slow.")

He knows his own weaknesses ("I try to tell myself it's nothing but decent affection I feel for her, but the truth is, it doesn't feel entirely decent. She's too lovely a woman for this to be decent affection, though it's probably not exactly indecent either. Is there a state more or less halfway between decency and indecency? Is there a name for such a realm? The Kingdom of Cowardice? The Fiefdom of Altruism? The Grove of Academe?") and is well aware of his flaws ("I use my own solitude to consider what may well be my worst character flaw, the fact that in the face of life's seriousness, its pettiness, its tragedy, its lack of coherent meaning, my spirits are far too easily restored")

This is a book filled with humour, some of it quite dark, and much of it very dry; it will have readers grinning, chuckling and laughing out loud, so is perhaps not a book to read in public. Russo gives Hank some succinct and insightful observations: "What I suspect is that this brandy is intended to brace me for unpleasantness, and that any brandy used for this purpose may be imbued with medicinal bitterness if you suspect the truth". He also allows Hank to display his literary talent in the form of descriptive prose: "Properly medicated, Yolanda felt becalmed on a flat lake where others nearby were sailing about merrily, wind snapping in their sails......Skipping her medication caused the sails of her own small craft to billow like the others, allowed her to join in the merriment, tacking in and out among the other revelers, the wind in her hair and her clothing".

Fans of Russo's earlier books will not be disappointed with Straight Man; readers new to his work will want to seek out more works by this talented author. Clever and brilliantly funny. ...more

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Oct 29, 2013 Stephen P rated it really liked it

He lives his life as head of the English Department at a western Pennsylvania University.. Married, he is the father of grown children, the owner of a house and dog. The fifty years of his life has been dedicated to the fine honing of obstinate vengeance, the satisfaction of tripping others up, the culmination not of progressing himself or family but the endless monotone of self-destruction. These are the consequences with which he sculpts himself, along with a sealed isolation protecting him

He lives his life as head of the English Department at a western Pennsylvania University.. Married, he is the father of grown children, the owner of a house and dog. The fifty years of his life has been dedicated to the fine honing of obstinate vengeance, the satisfaction of tripping others up, the culmination not of progressing himself or family but the endless monotone of self-destruction. These are the consequences with which he sculpts himself, along with a sealed isolation protecting him from those others floating about him.

We must discuss the writing style of this book. It is both necessary and important. There is no style. This a not a studied Oullipian attempt at writing under imposed limitations, or an effort to be subversive or clever. Russo writes with earnest simplicity of a story told. Without the flowering of grand phrases or the twinings of stylistic experimentation, he allows the story to unfold smooth, at its own pace. (A difficult and courageous act for a writer to have the faith in a story that it will be sufficient without extraneous help.)

It reads interesting and easy. I did not read studiously slow treating the book as a text, while looking over my shoulder and whispering in my ear, Hey S. that was a solid interpretation. Good going son your are piecing together a theme. I simply listened to a story teller telling me a story.

Afterward I realized there were numerous gems not hidden but that I missed since I was rightfully engaged at reading on hearing-a-story-level.He is not coy. These notations of deep concern and importance are events that surface out of the process of original and true story telling.

At times, labeled as a lunch-pail working man's writer has been misleading and may stir readers adrift The confusion lies with subjugating earnestness, the straightforwardness of narrative which does not explore the poetics of flare and archeological placements of metaphor with a particular class. This unfairly limits its mission as well as both sides of the discussion. It is thus and more.

I missed many gems but I would not read it for the first time differently. The solution comes in rereading it. An example of one stumbled upon-I will not give details and try not to ruin things for potential readers-is when we share a tragedy with another often we make a silent pact that as a unit of two we will forget it. What it entails in the fine print never read is that each will walk through numerous lifelong strategies to create a safe distance from one another. Even someone close may need to be sacrificed from any form of intimacy to keep pain shuttled at bay.

All through this book is quietly rendered how our lives are shaped by the silent pacts we make with others and with ourselves. Pacts we never knew we signed much less were notarized and perused endlessly by a team of hidden lawyers. It is a cautionary tale yet Russo undercuts it all with a biting humor. Most amazing, and this is what elevates this story and he as a writer, it is told by and about the narrator, again a person whose life is crafted by an obsession for vengeance without knowing why or who the vengeance is truly aimed at. In another writers hands this could result in an arid flatness. Yet, Russo makes him, the story, endlessly fascinating while quietly embedding it in the folds of the reader's mind. This takes writerly skill beyond most.

He deserves a greater abundance of recognition and a label on the cover of this book warning readers to not be fooled by the earnestness of its simplicity. Treasures can easily be walked past and never found. ...more

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Aug 26, 2015 Kristina rated it did not like it

Shelves: my-book, disappointing, fiction, got-rid-of, literary-fiction, want-my-money-back

I don’t want to give Richard Russo’s Straight Man one star, but I feel I must. After the first fifty pages or so, I started to dislike it. The more I read, the more I disliked it. Now that I’ve finished all 391 mostly painful pages, I’m irritated that I allowed myself to get distracted by this frustrating book. I don’t feel as if I learned anything or was even sufficiently entertained. A friend recommended this book to me, telling me it was a story of academic dysfunction, a state we are both fa I don’t want to give Richard Russo’s Straight Man one star, but I feel I must. After the first fifty pages or so, I started to dislike it. The more I read, the more I disliked it. Now that I’ve finished all 391 mostly painful pages, I’m irritated that I allowed myself to get distracted by this frustrating book. I don’t feel as if I learned anything or was even sufficiently entertained. A friend recommended this book to me, telling me it was a story of academic dysfunction, a state we are both familiar with. However, it’s more a story of a very frustrating, asshole of a man who I wanted to smack fairly early on.

William Henry Devereaux, Jr. is a tenured English professor in a small, mediocre liberal arts university. He is also the temporary chair of the English department. The university is beset by rumors of budget cuts, and as chair, his colleagues assume he knows the truth behind the rumors and what positions will be cut. Hank (as he is known) protests he knows nothing. His wife, Lily, is a teacher at the local high school. Their younger daughter, Julie, is married to Russell. They are overspending their budget by building a house near them. His father, William Henry Devereaux, Sr., PhD, is a legend in the academic world for his books on literary analysis. He also abandoned his wife and child many years ago. He is now moving back to town to live with his long-divorced first wife, Hank’s mother. While trying to teach his classes and negotiate his personal life, Hank must also try to keep the hysteria and dysfunction of his department under control before the dean and the CEO (I’m guessing this is another name for the president of the university) decides to can the lot of them.

Aside from the occasional sentence that made me laugh or I could nod in agreement with, I didn’t like this book. The two best-written and compelling sections of the book are ironically stories within the story written by Hank for the local paper. The first is a story about his first dog and the second is about his father. They are both touching, funny, and compelling. I enjoyed them. Unlike the rest of the book, which I rarely found touching, funny or compelling. I don’t know what the point of the damn book is. Hank has to be one the most annoying, frustrating, assholish characters I have ever had the displeasure to spend time with. He is absolutely useless. He seems to me to be useless as a husband, because he is oblivious to everything and doesn’t seem to pay attention to anything going on his personal life and a downright pain in the ass as a colleague and chair of the English department. He responds to his colleagues’ concerns about the budget crisis (and their possible loss of jobs) by ignoring them, joking about it, and, when it is time for him to take some kind of action, he does absolutely nothing—like the useless coward he is. He doesn’t take a stand on anything. That is so frustrating to me! He doesn’t fight anything, he doesn’t state his convictions, he just treats everything and everyone like a huge joke. I understand his reluctance to create a list of colleagues who should be cut. I would be reluctant too. However, he’s at least in a position to wield some influence over the decisions and cut the faculty who are terrible (and he has opinions about that) and try to save the jobs of others who are decent. He doesn’t even try. He never tries to accomplish anything, not one thing, throughout the entire novel. He never even thinks creatively about the situation—how to ease the pain for some of these people, how to maybe get them a decent severance package, nothing. Hank is a despicable person. He spends his days avoiding the union officer, the dean, his coworkers, his mother and any other problem that inconveniences him. No wonder the damn man couldn’t pee (and his urinary difficulties were mentioned a great deal, often in the context of a childish joke. Just shut up about it already). To make matters worse, he’s rewarded for his bullshit cowardice. In the epilogue, everything is tied up so neatly it made me gag. His wife gets a better job, he gets a better teaching schedule, a grant they proposed years ago is rediscovered and awarded, his daughter and son-in-law get back together and unload their expensive house and get jobs in Atlanta, and the English department—so full of people of who hated each other—now all get along! And have barbeques together and play basketball! Yippee! Are you fucking kidding me? Hate. What was the point of all of Hank’s philosophical moaning and bullshit “jokes” when it all comes out so hunky-dory in the end?

Other than a few digs about academia (“He’s been a reasonably well-intentioned, lazy, honorable, mildly incompetent dean, and that’s the best you can hope for.” 246 and “Anyone who observed us would conclude the purpose of all academic discussion was to provide the grounds for becoming further entrenched in our original positions.” 201—that one is so true it’s just barely funny), I didn’t enjoy this book. Most of what I disliked about this book (other than it seems to have had no point at all), revolves around the character of Hank. I disliked how he would often refer to himself in the third person, using his full name: “William Henry Devereaux, Jr.” I disliked his near constant phrase: “I’m not X, but I can play that role.” I think he is all those things he said he wasn’t. The constant referral to William of Occam, the philosopher, and his “Occam’s Razor” philosophy made me gnash my teeth. Stop! Rachel, Hank’s secretary, is unable to speak declarative sentences so everything she says sounds like a question. Do you know how fucking irritating it is to read dialogue by a character that always ends in question marks? It’s really irritating and unfortunately Rachel had too much to say. She’s also another one of the characters who had marvelous things happen for her at the end of the book. There’s a definite lack of decent female characters in this book. There are very few women characters in this novel who aren’t slutty, drunk, bitchy or generally useless. One of them is Hank’s saint of a wife, but she’s barely a character and is absent for 99% of the novel.

I regret purchasing this book. I disliked it very much and Hank is a useless asshole who needs to grow the fuck up. This book is more about Hank the 50-yr-old juvenile than a commentary on academic life (which is why I bought it). Dear Committee Members is a much sharper and better written commentary on the frustrating reality of modern academia than Straight Man. I don’t recommend this book unless you enjoy reading about useless cowardly men who make lame jokes out of everything while they experience a mid-life crisis. ...more

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Jun 28, 2018 Stephanie Gardiner-Walsh rated it really liked it

Shelves: ctlt-summer-challenge-gdubs

I needed a laugh and this was it. A story of a disfunctional English department, a midlife crisis, and a goose, this novel made me laugh at our plight as academics. the last chapter left me hanging-the epilogue completed the story.... with a one liner. the audiobook was well done, as well.

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Jun 20, 2020 Margaret rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4/5

Well, I put off writing this review of Richard Russo’s Straight Man long enough so many of details that I enjoyed so much while reading are fading and hiding somewhere in the back of my mind. But I won’t let that stop me from sharing what I do remember. Russo’s protagonist, Henry “Hank” Devereaux, Jr. is a professor of English at a third rate college tucked into a rural corner of Pennsylvania. He is now in his fifties but was the promising bright young man when they hired him: a successful no 4/5

Well, I put off writing this review of Richard Russo’s Straight Man long enough so many of details that I enjoyed so much while reading are fading and hiding somewhere in the back of my mind. But I won’t let that stop me from sharing what I do remember. Russo’s protagonist, Henry “Hank” Devereaux, Jr. is a professor of English at a third rate college tucked into a rural corner of Pennsylvania. He is now in his fifties but was the promising bright young man when they hired him: a successful novelist with a first book that received positive reviews and the son of a famous English professor/critic father. But Hank gets into the mundane rhythms of department and college life. He is married to Lily, a teacher of low-level high school students. People might be fooled into thinking that he is the power half of this couple, but he is not. Lily is not only more successful in her profession, she also has taken the time to really get to know people well, starting with their own two daughters.

As Hank fills his work time with departmental nonsense, he abandons his own writing career. His one novel was long ago; he did not continue writing seriously. Instead, all he does these days is write snarky little satires of college life, which he publishes in the local newspaper. He keeps an observer posture with all that goes on. We see that clearly in how he talks to himself about what is going on around him. Whenever anyone else characterizes him as something or another, he says that he doesn’t consider himself, for example, a religious man, but he can play that role. He repeats that line at various key points throughout the novel. We see he does not consider himself Cecil B. DeMille or an innocent or a misogynist or a coward at various points. But he always says he could play those roles. And he does and many others he is unaware of playing. He is the department member selectively oblivious to the various wheeling and dealing going on around him. He is the well-loved husband who under-appreciates his wife, although he always loves her. He is the father not up-to-date on his daughters’ lives. And finally, he is the son, whose father did not appreciate him and also the son who is never as good a writer or professor as his father was. But he is a better man, although it takes a long time for him to figure that out.

Russo is an amazing author here. He builds an under-achieving but sympathetic main character. At the same time, the way he tells his story keeps all of his readers laughing throughout. He really knows the squalid and trivial undersides of academia. Read this very funny satire of academic life, which also shows a deep love for the hearts of people. Complex, funny, bittersweet, sympathetic: this novel is a winner. ...more

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Dec 09, 2007 M rated it it was ok

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 meanwh ...more

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Jul 11, 2008 Amanda rated it really liked it · 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 the ...more

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Dec 18, 2017 J.K. Grice rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction

To me, there is no finer working American author than Richard Russo. STRAIGHT MAN was published 20 years ago, but it still resonates as a very humorous and engaging work of fiction. Russo does a serviceable job with our main protagonist, Hank Devereaux; at least in regard to our maintaining an interest in Hank's personality, musings, and adventures. The supporting cast of characters is also well rounded and fleshed out. Hank may be an English professor, but just like everybody else, he shares th ...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Peter rated it really liked it

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 luna 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 lunacy than I won't feel as bad when no one hires me.

I decided to start with Russo because, quite simply, I like the cut of the man's writing jib. It's probably not cool to like Richard Russo anymore (if it ever was). He's a bit too good humored and dare I say, optimistic, for the average literary reader. And many of his books get made into movies that your parents like. But still, I turn to Russo for humanism. Not specifically for the fundamental good in people, but for the ways in which he seems to understand the small humiliations, irrational desires, and fleeting joys that make up much of our lives and the way he forgives us for our inability to make sense of all this. He finds something noble and big-hearted in even the most dispiriting aspects of contemporary American culture. Like, say, for instance, the way a college is run.

The familiar tropes show up here from page one. Lots of tweed. Department in-fighting. Feminists vs Old Department Dinosaurs. Heavy drinking. Philandering. Student protests. And of course, Delusions of Grandeur. However, navigating it all is a Henry Devereaux, Jr, a reluctant department chair, ex-writer, and career ironist. Aside from all of the very funny set pieces, and academic gags, the pleasure in this book is in watching the evolution of a character whose mask and essence couldn't be more different. He deflects the silly, sorry state of his life and career with puns, sarcastic quips, and cutting bon mots. He rarely says anything he means. Yet, as the novel progresses, he's forced to make decisions that bring him ever closer to figuring out what he really believes, something he hasn't really thought about in twenty years.

My only substantive complaint about the book is that Russo has a kitchen sink approach to comedy. Aside from Henry's problems with department cuts, he also has an estranged father moving back, a delusional mother, a crazy father-in-law, a secretary he might be in love with, a possible gall stone problem, a daughter on the outs with her husband, a vendetta against an aggressive goose, a possibly unhinged writing student, and other handfuls of daily tribulations. All of this keeps the yuks coming, but at times seems more like piling-on than plotting.

In the end, however, I think The Straight Man had the effect I was looking for. I got to laugh at myself and the club that would have me for a member (at least for now). And I got a worthy protagonist in the bargain. Now if only I could figure what I truly believe...

...more

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Oct 27, 2019 Douglas rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Douglas by: Diane Barnes

To my surprise, (the late) Richard Russo's satire caused me to break into a belly laugh with his use of the word asparagus.
A brilliant wordsmith and storyteller.
Frankly, it is embarrassing to disclose that it has taken me this long to discover his brilliance. ...more

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Nov 29, 2019 Mehrsa rated it really liked it

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

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Mar 20, 2015 Pete rated it it was amazing

Shelves: book-club-tomfoolery, favorites, funny-stuff

After looking over numerous reviews of this book I found the common problem the one and two star reviewers had with Straight Man was either a dislike of the main character or they didn't understand the humor. I'm not sure how much this should worry me? I found that my own sense of humor is eerily similar to the main characters and was laughing consistently throughout the novel.

The title refers to a straight man in a comedy. One who sets the scene for a great punchline. I can easily tell you a wa ...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Jason Pettus rated it it was amazing

Shelves: funny, postmodernism, personal-favorite

[Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography (cclapcenter.com). I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.]

I was all excited when I first stumbled across this in the "New Additions" section of the Chicago Public Library's ebook collection, because I thought I had randomly come across Pulitzer winner Richard Russo's newest title just minutes after it had been announced at the website, and therefore was going to [Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography (cclapcenter.com). I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.]

I was all excited when I first stumbled across this in the "New Additions" section of the Chicago Public Library's ebook collection, because I thought I had randomly come across Pulitzer winner Richard Russo's newest title just minutes after it had been announced at the website, and therefore was going to get to check it out before anybody else; but in fact, although it was new to their collection, the book itself is from 1997, and in fact is one of the more well-loved ones of his entire career. A gentle character-based comedy about life among academes in a small college town, like Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys and Jane Smiley's Moo it takes the self-reflective topic of writing professors on a closed campus (usually a no-no in writing guides for beginners) and embraces it for all it's worth, really delving into the quirky little details that come specifically with academic life, but spicing it up with enough interesting plot developments to make it much more than the usual piece of circle-jerking masturbation than the "writing professor writing about writing professors" subgenre usually produces. And of course, in this case things are helped immensely as well by the main character being such a fascinatingly complex and charming curmudgeon, an aging fiction professor who has long ago accepted his fate at the third-tier podunk college where they all gossip and backbite, and who in his very mild way has decided to rage against the machine which is campus pettiness, combining a world-weary attitude with occasional bursts of M*A*S*H-style outrageous actions, including his habit of playing the Motley Fool whenever in front of the local media just to stir up more crap for his overlords on the school's board of directors. I usually have a low tolerance for this kind of metafictional material, but again like Wonder Boys and Moo this is a rare exception, expressly because Russo takes the time and energy to put together a wonderfully entertaining, sometimes legitimately thrilling story to take place in this environment, instead of the usual endless whiny screeds about middle-aged men having affairs with their 19-year-old students. It comes hugely recommended, and makes me even more excited than I was to finally tackle his Pulitzer-winning Empire Falls for the CCLaP 100 later this year. ...more

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Nov 07, 2013 Connie rated it it was ok

Shelves: with-reviews

Meh. 1.5.

I finished it. Barely. That's about all I can say for the book. I bought it for $4 from The Book Barn a while back--after all, I should really read something other than science fiction or fantasy sometimes, right? The problem is, whenever I go outside my book comfort zone, my success rate tends to be fairly low. Ironically, when I went back to The Book Barn today (looking to get rid of the darn thing), they wouldn't take it back! I brought back about 20 books and 25 dvds--and some of t Meh. 1.5.

I finished it. Barely. That's about all I can say for the book. I bought it for $4 from The Book Barn a while back--after all, I should really read something other than science fiction or fantasy sometimes, right? The problem is, whenever I go outside my book comfort zone, my success rate tends to be fairly low. Ironically, when I went back to The Book Barn today (looking to get rid of the darn thing), they wouldn't take it back! I brought back about 20 books and 25 dvds--and some of them pretty strange (I mean, I brought the movie "The Faculty"). And this was the only item they didn't want. So now I'm stuck with the darn thing. You want a copy? Let me know. The narrator of the book, was he real, would probably have a good laugh at that one.

I guess this is one of those "good" books--one that addresses the quirks of human nature, the listlessness that comes with being middle-aged and stuck with mediocrity, long-repressed daddy issues, and so forth. But, it just wasn't fun to read, and I don't feel like I gained any better knowledge or understanding from reading it.

The first 50 pages or so I actually enjoyed--the narrator is the perpetual comic--mocking at all the "Straight" men and women around him, people who can't see the humor in their own idiosyncrasies. But as the book progresses, the narrator comes across as more and more of a jerk--for example, some of the people in his department come to him fearing for their jobs, and all he can do is laugh. The entire book felt "fuzzy" to me: the readers' only glimpse into the world is through the narrator, and he is so clueless it feels like being stuck in thick fog. (view spoiler) This happens within the last few pages, and I was already debating between a one and two star review before it happened.

I guess the comedy in this book just didn't really strike me as all that funny. At best, it was a little bit too close to home. At worst, it was just annoying.

In sum: meh.

...more

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Sep 18, 2007 Robert W rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: anyone who likes campus comedy novels

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

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Aug 21, 2018 Judy rated it liked it

Shelves: 20th-century-fiction, reading-group-pick

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, ...more

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Apr 07, 2007 James rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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

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Sep 04, 2017 Beverly rated it really liked it

This made me laugh out loud which is something I never do when reading, even a really hilarious book. A down-at-heel college professor is bored with his job and deals with office politics and in-fighting among colleagues, it is a scream and ends on a chuckle which is hard to do.

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Mar 05, 2016 Vonia rated it it was ok

Shelves: academia, overhyped, parenting, small-town-lives

Not much to say about this one. I was highly disappointed, reading this due solely because of my affinity for Russo's Pulitzer Prize winning "Empire Falls". This seemed as if it were written by a completely different author. The goose on the cover honestly gives the deceiving impression that this is funny or silly. Neither of which it is. Maybe it tries. An attempt in which it failed miserably.

Mundane and uninteresting stories fill the novel, the telling of a week in the protagonist's middle ag ...more

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About Richard Russo

Richard Russo

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RICHARD RUSSO is the author of seven previous novels; two collections of stories; and Elsewhere, a memoir. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody’s Fool was adapted to film, in a multiple-award-winning HBO miniseries.

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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.” — 34 likes

“Truth be told, I'm not an easy man. I can be an entertaining one, though it's been my experience that most people don't want to be entertained. They want to be comforted. And, of course, my idea of entertaining might not be yours. I'm in complete agreement with all those people who say, regarding movies, 'I just want to be entertained.' This populist position is much derided by my academic colleagues as simpleminded and unsophisticated, evidence of questionable analytical and critical acuity. But I agree with the premise, and I too just want to be entertained. That I am almost never entertained by what entertains other people who just want to be entertained doesn't make us philosophically incompatible. It just means that we shouldn't go to movies together.” — 19 likes

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