Straight Man – Richard Russo

3 Responses to Straight Man – Richard Russo

1. Mr Red says:

   January 24, 2021 at 6:55 pm

   The nearest thing to a genuine American campus novel. There are plenty of novels set in universities (Alison Lurie’s The War Between the Tates, for example, or Jane Smiley’s Moo, or Don DeLillo’s White Noise) but none of them focuses on satirising academic life in the manner of Lodge or Bradbury. This novel generates a lot of comic situations, some of them rather OTT, and has academic situations at its heart; amusing dialogue, interesting characters (particularly enjoyable is the young academic in the English Department who teaches theory and hates literature), and the almost total absence of any kind of coherent plot doesn’t really spoil the book in the end.

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2. Mr Black says:

   January 27, 2021 at 6:49 pm

   A meandering exploration of academic life and squabbles at an American university. The absence of any real plot strangely does not detract from the enjoyment of this book which contains some classic comic moments. Not sure how the author pulled off this success – definitely worth reading.

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3. Mr Orange says:

   July 8, 2021 at 12:21 am

   An unexpected delight. This is a genuinely funny novel which overcomes a modest setting and lack of plot. Possibly the book Mark Twain would write if he were alive.

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