Vintage
June 1998
On Sale: June 9, 1998
Featuring: illiam Henry Devereaux, Jr.
416 pages ISBN: 0375701907 EAN: 9780375701900 Paperback Add to Wish List
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 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 and true-to-life,
witty, compassionate, and impossible to put down.
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy