About this title: 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 ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Very Good. 0679432469 Nice **HARDCOVER**--Exactly as described--EXACT ISBN MATCH-Dust Jacket has minor Shelf wear/rubbing. No tears, No personalizations, No marks in the text at all. Clean and Neat. read more
Description: Very Good. 0375701907 Paperback, Condition: Very Good; this book is in very good condition with light discoloration due to aging and other light wear. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1998-06-09
ISBN-13:9780375701900ISBN:0375701907
Description: Very Good. Very Good Condition. Binding tight, pages clean. Light edge-wear. Phone number in ink on top right of back cover. Lovely glossy copy! read more
Edition: Abridged.
Binding: Audiobook cassette
Publisher: Random House Audio Publishing Group
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780679460046ISBN:0679460047
Description: Good in good dust jacket. Ex-library. 2 cassettes. Audience: General/trade. Normal library attachments. A small stain on the front of the packaging. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780375701900ISBN:0375701907
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 416 p. Audience: General/trade. Book is in excellent condition. Cover and pages are clean, binding is tight. We ship daily, Satisfaction Guaranteed. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780679432463ISBN:0679432469
Description: Very Good-Used in None as Issued jacket. / 0679432469. Very good. Minimal shelfwear. Owner stamp inside front cover. Pages are clean and bright. Binding is tight. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Vintage Contemporaries, New York, New York
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780375701900ISBN:0375701907
Description: Very Good+ with no dust jacket. 0375701907. Tightly bound, clean, unmarked, read once. The cover has minor scratches and a spine crease. "[Russo] skewers academic pretensions and infighting with mad abandon...In a clear and muscular prose that is a pleasure to read....I had to stop often to guffaw, gasp, wheeze and wipe away my tears. "--Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times (from the cover). Having read this book, I second this opinion.; 8vo 8"-9" tall; 391 pages. read more
Description: Fine. Excellent condition. Back cover slightly curved. No writings/underlines/highlights. Pages are very nice and clean. Satisfaction guaranteed! read more
"The main character, Lucky Hank, is a burned out smart-ass who chairs an English department at a miserable university in a miserable town with miserable faculty members who fight all of the time.
Read the other reviews for full details of the story, but in a nutshell I have found it hard to relate to the characters. They don't seem real and fully developed to me, and I haven't developed a connection and an affection for them. I am tired of Hank's dismissive response to everything. His lack of introspection on the mess of his own life just got tiring and frustrating. All of the characters in the book want to slap some sense into Hank, and as a reader that's what I have wanted to do as well.
I've read 2/3 of the book, so maybe it will come into focus. I will say that the book is oddly intriguing--enough so that I've continued to read it and will finish it. Nothing really happens in this book. It just meanders along. But it keeps seeming like something might happen, so I keep reading."
"This was the most humorous books I ever read! That's why I gave it 5 stars. Normally, I don't find books necessarily "funny" but his humor is clever, intelligent, and had me in stitches. It's dry and subtle. It's a story about a 49-year-old English professor who's not in touch with himself, but he's bright and moral, but a wise-ass... still, he's a good guy. He comes to terms with aging and dealing with people. I'm not one who needs "action action action" in a book or movie; I simply enjoy reading about real life. This book is well written and I was able to get inside his head.
FUNNY MOMENTS in RICHARD RUSSO'S STRAIGHT MAN:
" Hank threatens to hit Teddy for liking his wife. Teddy reminds Hank that Hank is a pacifist. Hank says "That doesn't mean I can't threaten you. It just means you're not required to take me seriously." (page 7)
" "Teddy belongs to the vast majority who believe that love isn't something you kid about. I don't see how you could not kid about love and still claim to have a sense of humor." (page 7)
" Paul Rourke follows Teddy and Hank in their car, and swerves to stop their car, then storms out to confront them. Hank says to Teddy "If a fight breaks out, she's mine." (page 10)
" In the beginning of the novel, Ted drives Hank home. They pull in the driveway and Hank's wife Lily waves to them. ""She gives us a wave, and Teddy can't wait to get out of the car so he can wave back." (prior paragraph Hank was talking about how Ted had a crush on his wife) (page 11)
" When the dog groins Teddy, Hank tells him "My wife taught him that trick." (page 13)
" "The food on campus is unworthy of a dean. Therefore, we will dine at a bowling alley." (page 78)
" I thought it was hilarious how the waitress in the bowling alley kept ignoring Hank. (page 79-80)
" Hank's mother believed that a sprained ankle could be mended with a washcloth, and once scrubbed, he was good as new. (page 89)
" Gracie, who ripped Hank's nose with the spiral of a notebook, comes to his office to see him. Hank's secretary announces her coming to Hank. Hank's response is "Frisk her and send her in." (page 104)
" When Hank says "Gracie, I..." Gracie interrupts and insists that Hank call her "Dr. DuBois." They talk. She says, "Actually, Professor Devereaux, I..." but he interrupts her and insists she call him "Hank." (page 105)
" Hank thinks that with tenure, Gracie's position couldn't be moved aside with a truck. He's about to tell her, then realizes she may take the comment as a cruel reference to her weight gain. (page 105)
" In a bar, Tony tells Missy that Hank is a barbarian, a cretin, as he himself is eating clams in his weird way (which he thinks is divine). "Missy looks me over to see if this is true. I eat another clam the same way I did before, with tons of cocktail sauce, not wanting to confuse her." (page 122)
" "It looks like Paul Rourke could be taken in a fight. Not by me, but by somebody. Not by anybody in Humanities. Maybe by someone in P.E." (page 146)
" He said "by flirting with Meg, drunken Billy Quigley's daughter, I was betraying Billy, my wife, and my secretary." His secretary... ha! (he said he was half in love with his secretary) (page 150)
" "Dickie Pope - he wants us all to call him Dickie, and most of us come pretty close - bla bla bla." (page 152)
" "We all start shaking hands. I offer to shake Lou's hand first, and when he grudgingly extends his hand I put the peach in it. Instead of just setting it down, he tries to get me to take it back, but I've moved on to Dickie and Terence, and for some darn reason, Lou can't recapture my attention. I feel for him. It's not an easy thing to be left holding a piece of fruit during introductions. This is the first time it's happened to Lou, I can tell." (page 154)
" Old Mr. Purty is talking to Hank about a car he bought. "That tark's usually extra, but I got it at no charge." I myself have no idea what a tark might cost because I don't know what a tark is, until I follow Mr. Purty's gaze our the back window to the back of the pickup truck, which is covered with a slate gray tarp. When I'm with him, I often feel like I'm the one who should be wearing a hearing aid. (page 181)
" Hank's wife, who is away, calls him. She says his voice sounds funny and asks where he is. He explains "I'm hiding from Finny in a phone booth in the basement of Modern Languages." It's a measure of how long she's been married to an academic that Lily sees nothing unusual about this. (page 196)
" After the mob thinks Hank killed a duck, he notices "a single STOP THE SLAUGHTER sign has been planted in the bank to ward off evil." (page 202)
" Hank walks alone to the pond on campus, and says to a goose, "Finny! Qué pasa?" Then June comes by right after his sneezing fit (allergies) and, upon seeing his face, asks if he's been crying. He says to her "Don't be absurd. I've just been talking to a goose." (page 202)
" Hank's secretary returns from a seminar on sexual harassment. Hank says to her "Come sit on my lap. I want to hear all about it." (page 203)
"My favorite Russo book, edging past Empire Falls. Funny, insightful, and a wee bit sad, this gives the best view I've seen of college academia from the faculty point-of-view."
""I'm thinking about doing a special topics course next year, maybe compare a couple of episodes of "Diff'rent Strokes" with "Huckleberry Finn." You know, like, the great American racist novel? Show how white attitudes haven't changed, how the basic fantasy's still intact today? June thinks it's a good idea."
"I thought you didn't want them reading books," I say. "Writing being a phallocentric activity and all that." --Richard Russo, "Straight Man" page 144.
Does the above excerpt remind you of people you know, professors you've had, or perhaps yourself? I know when I read this book, I had a list of names, all professors, that I wanted to recommend it to, though I wanted to do it anonymously. Very funny book about life in academia, no...about life in general, but with the added twist of academia and that is a twist that many don't ever taste. Not just for people in the field, for everyone. I did give this book to a professor and he in turn gave me another very funny book which I will locate and write about later."
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