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Straight Man (Paperback)

by Richard Russo (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Straight Man + Empire Falls + Nobody's Fool
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  • This item: Straight Man by Richard Russo

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Product details

  • Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (4 Jun 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099376210
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099376217
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 36,230 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Daily Telegraph

Funny and tender


Product Description

At age fifty, Professor William Henry Devereaux, Jr, has more than a mid-life crisis to deal with. As a child, his parents found him merely exasperating. As an adult, and interim chair of the English Department, he is careening out of control. Half in love with three women, unable to understand his daughter or come to terms with his father, Hank has a dangerous philosophy that life, even an academic life, could be simpler, and that endless discussions and negotiation might profitably be replaced by provocation or simple extortion. He is a man in thrall to the perversity principle. Packed with memorable characters and scenes of pure genius, "Straight Man" is exhilarating, hilarious and deeply moving - an unforgettable portrait of a middle aged man caught somewhere between cause and effect.
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Straight Man
66% buy the item featured on this page:
Straight Man 5.0 out of 5 stars (3)
£6.74
Empire Falls
11% buy
Empire Falls 4.6 out of 5 stars (8)
£5.98
Bridge of Sighs
9% buy
Bridge of Sighs 4.5 out of 5 stars (8)
£5.99
Nobody's Fool
9% buy
Nobody's Fool 5.0 out of 5 stars (5)
£7.49
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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Read it to Believe It, 25 May 2003
By Bruce Kendall "BEK" (Southern Pines, NC) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
In STRAIGHT MAN, Russo performs a balancing act of surface playfulness combined with searing truths about life's missed opportunities and moments of quiet despair. Behind the one-liners and the buffoonery of Henry Devereux Jr.'s comic mask, exists an enigmatic, compassionate, troubled soul, whose personality disorder has been triggered by a single incident he shares with his mother when he is a young teen. His humorous guise is something he has created so as to safely retreat from the seperation anxiety that is his constant companion. To his friends and colleagues he is "Hank," easy to dismiss or to to ridicule, or in two instances, to physically attack (OK, three, if you count the goose!). Russo does a very subtle and masterful job of slowly developing the interior Henry Devereux Jr., however, and by the novel's end, the reader has been granted the full revelation of character and the whole man stands naked (figuritavely speaking) before us.

STRAIGHT MAN is definitely my recommendation of 2003, thus far. The funny bits are truly hysterical. The dramatic bits ring true to life. This certainly not just another humorous novel about Academia. It's as well written and well rounded as any novel I've read in recent years. I look forward with great anticipation to reading EMPIRE FALLS.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars His best book yet-pullitzer?, 3 Dec 2003
This review is from: Straight Man (Hardcover)
This is a typically wonderful Russo book, full of the love of comic human frailty and the understanding that some things "better left unsaid" are actually far better articulated and how! It is multi-layered and well worth a second and third read, a book forever.
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5.0 out of 5 stars The killing fields of academe, 18 Sep 2009
By E. Shaw "Kokoschka's_cat" (Leeds, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This has to be the best novel I have read in some time. It is funny, literary, intelligent and tender. William Henry Devereaux Jr is a tenured professor of English in a small town college on the eastern seaboard of the United States. He is happily married to Lily and has two grown-up daughters. The novel concerns the politics and absurdities of academic life.

Henry is fun. He is coming up to 50 but he has never really reached the stage where age has hampered his sense of the ridiculous and neither has it much got at his sense of honour. There is no false dignity in Henry, however, and he is ready to mix things with the best of them. The college itself thrives on the sense of insecurity it can induce in its teaching staff. Henry is currently the Chair of the English faculty and this small area of power has led to a prickly understanding of the ridiculous lengths most of the others will go to in order to ensure their tenure continues. There is much political manoeuvring, to which Henry is not quite immune.

This book is very funny and is written with gentle irony and understanding. It is lovely in its way - full of insight with a cast of marvellous characters, few of whom are keeping their heads above water in the killing fields of academe. Full of incident, full of grace, full of laughter and life.
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