Straight Man

A Novel

A Novel

A Novel

By Richard Russo

By Richard Russo

By Richard Russo
Read by Sam Freed

Part of Vintage Contemporaries

Part of Vintage Contemporaries

Best Seller
Straight Man by Richard Russo
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Read An Excerpt

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Read An Excerpt

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Paperback $18.00

Jun 09, 1998 | 416 Pages

Ebook $12.99

Nov 09, 2011 | 416 Pages

Audiobook Download $24.00

Aug 14, 2003 | 852 Minutes

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      Jun 09, 1998 | 416 Pages

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    • Audiobook Download $24.00

      Aug 14, 2003 | 852 Minutes

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    About Straight Man

    Hilarious and true-to-life, witty, compassionate, and impossible to put down, Straight Man follows Hank Devereaux through one very bad week in this novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo.
     
    William Henry Devereaux, Jr., is 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, poignant, compassionate, and unforgettable.

    About Straight Man

    Hilarious and true-to-life, witty, compassionate, and impossible to put down, Straight Man follows Hank Devereaux through one very bad week in this novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo.
     
    William Henry Devereaux, Jr., is 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, poignant, compassionate, and unforgettable.

    About Straight Man

    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 fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and finally confronts his philandering elderly father, the one-time king of American Literary Theory, at an abandoned amusement park.

    Such is the canvas of Richard Russo’s Straight Man, a novel of surpassing wit, poignancy, and insight. As he established in his previous books — Mohawk, The Risk Pool, and Nobody’s Fool — Russo is unique among contemporary authors for his ability to flawlessly capture the soul of the wise guy and the heart of a difficult parent. In Hank Devereaux, Russo has created a hero whose humor and identification with the absurd are mitigated only by his love for his family, friends, and, ultimately, knowledge itself.

    Unforgettable, compassionate, and laugh-out-loud funny, Straight Man cements Richard Russo’s reputation as one of the master storytellers of our time.

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    Praise

    “The funniest serious novel I have read since–well, maybe since Portnoy’s Complaint.” — Tom De Haven, The New York Times Book Review

    “There is a big, wry heart beating at the center of Russo’s fiction.” —The New Yorker

    “[Russo] skewers academic pretensions and infighting with mad abandon…in a clear and muscular prose that is a pleasaure to read….I had to stop often to guffaw, gasp, wheeze, and wipe away my tears.” — Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times

    “Bursting with humor and insight.” —USA Today

    About Richard Russo

    Richard Russo is the author of eight novels, most recently Everybody’s Fool and That Old Cape Magic; two collections of stories; and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody’s Fool was… More about Richard Russo

    About Richard Russo

    Richard Russo is the author of eight novels, most recently Everybody’s Fool and That Old Cape Magic; two collections of stories; and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody’s Fool was… More about Richard Russo

    About Richard Russo

    Richard Russo is the author of eight novels, most recently Everybody’s Fool and That Old Cape Magic; two collections of stories; and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody’s Fool was… More about Richard Russo

    Product Details

    Paperback
    Published by Vintage
    Jun 09, 1998 | 416 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780375701900

    Ebook
    Published by Vintage
    Nov 09, 2011 | 416 Pages | ISBN 9780307809940

    Audiobook Download
    Published by Random House Audio
    Aug 14, 2003 | 852 Minutes | ISBN 9781415900987

    Also by Richard Russo

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