From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

Trajectory

Richard Russo

Start date: December 15, 2018

Finish date: December 31, 2018

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Dec 16, 2018 Jane rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. From two wonderful reviews:
“Being you, going about things the way you usually do, isn’t always a good thing,” she tells Ray.
“I should become somebody else?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says, and it isn’t the predictable answer.

But the thought behind it — to redirect a life that has somehow gone off course — is the animating wish throughout Richard Russo’s “Trajectory,” a new collection of short fiction so rich and flavorsome that the temptation is to devour it all at once. I can’t in good conscience adv From two wonderful reviews:
“Being you, going about things the way you usually do, isn’t always a good thing,” she tells Ray.
“I should become somebody else?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says, and it isn’t the predictable answer.

But the thought behind it — to redirect a life that has somehow gone off course — is the animating wish throughout Richard Russo’s “Trajectory,” a new collection of short fiction so rich and flavorsome that the temptation is to devour it all at once. I can’t in good conscience advise otherwise.

The stories in “Trajectory” are a guided tour through the author’s preoccupations: the follies of academia. (Fighting words, but I’d pit Russo’s “Straight Man” against any of the novels in David Lodge’s “Campus Trilogy.”) The disappointments of midlife. (A theme in virtually every Russo novel) How marriage devolves into a two-headed Kabuki drama. How children recapitulate the mistakes of their parents. And, most notably — most persistently in this collection — how the world neatly divides into those who believe they are special, and those who do not.

There’s really no question that Russo’s William Nolan character is based on Redford. Nolan insists on being called “Regular Bill.” (People call Redford “Ordinary Bob,” a holdover from his “Ordinary People” days.) Nolan’s place is in Jackson Hole, Wyo. (Sundance, Jackson Hole; tomayto, tomahto.) Nolan is 15 years older than the author. (Redford is 13 years older than Russo; close enough). Nolan made a series of buddy movies with another actor, now dead, “the first and best about two Depression-era con artists.”The guy is about as well disguised as Inspector Clouseau.

“Milton and Marcus” also features a brief and affectionate cameo of a character who is clearly Paul Newman, with whom Russo collaborated three times. Nolan is not imbued with nearly the same affection. He comes across as a secret cheapskate and overt narcissist, a man who’s shrewdly selective about dialing up his sincerity, which itself is a mask for ruthlessness.

Don’t let the wickedness of “Milton and Marcus” fool you. It happens to be the most beautiful story in the book. And how much of it is true is beside the point. What matters is how it reflects the larger themes of Russo’s work. Jackson Hole is the ultimate foil to the decaying mill towns of Russo’s novels, and actors the ultimate foils to the low-esteem schlubs Russo writes about so well.

“More than their beauty, wealth and talent,” the narrator observes, “we envied their moral freedom, their ability to trade up and up again, while avoiding the consequences of doing so.”

Boy, do these people believe they are special. ...more

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Aug 25, 2018 Melissa rated it really liked it

Enjoyed the first 2 stories very much. Don't have the book in front of me, returned it, but felt the book went downhill toward the end. Too much profanity. Sort of put me off. ...more

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