Straight Man: A Novel

Written by Richard Russo

Narrated by Sam Freed

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.


From the Hardcover edition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio
• Release date: Aug 14, 2003
• ISBN: 9781415900987

Richard Russo

Richard Russo is the author of nine novels, two collections of short stories, a memoir, and several produced screenplays. Empire Falls won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and his adaptation of the book for HBO was nominated for an Emmy. His collection of essays, The Destiny Thief, will be published in 2018. He and his wife, Barbara, live in Portland, Maine.

Reviews for Straight Man

[jonimfisher · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hilarious romp into academia told from the point of view of an iconoclast. Russo is brilliant!

[eye_gee-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I didn't know Richard Russo could be so funny! I read Empire Falls and one of his other books (with a main character who is a real estate agent?). I like him but don't really relate. Kind of like Updike. This was genuinely entertaining.

[daizylee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So, so, so, so, so funny.

[miriamparker_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Truly hilarious academic novel. Really an enjoyable read.

[mahsdad · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Henry Devereaux Jr. is the sone of a famous author and is a once famous author himself. He is now the head of the English department at a small Pennsylvania college. He and the rest of the school are facing downsizing and budget issues. Pretty banal stuff. Until Henry threatens to kill a duck every day until he gets his budget. Then the surreal romp begins. Excellent, funny read.Couple quotes that stand out to me : "It's later than it should be, and I'm farther gone than I should be, and the moment when I might have exerted my free will, held up my hands, and shouted "No Mas!" to the cheering crowd is long past.""It turns out that scrapple is like a lot of food that's conceptually challenging. That is, better than you might expect."The fifties makes first basemen of us all"8/10S: 6/3/16 - F: 6/19/16 (17 Days)

[pritckat · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A light and easy read that's amusing enough, at times, to get an audible laugh. The book loses a little of its charms and whimsy in the second half, but none of its insight. The ending is a little quaint and attempts to show growth and character progression where I neither wanted nor needed it.

[ncnsstnt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

OUTSTANDING.

[bookscentlover · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

good humor.

[bookishjojo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amid all the quips and clever comebacks that fly through the halls of the dysfunctional English department at West Central Pennsylvania University in this novel, you find the reason for both all the antagonistic levity and the book's title. William Henry Devereaux, Jr., the story's narrator, states clearly:

In English departments, the most serious competition is for the role of straight man. Hank Devereaux, temporary department chair and determined wild card, revels in creating harmless chaos in his little corner of academia, and so rarely gets to play that coveted "straight man" role. He's a wisecracker who intentionally tries to hold the bad stuff in life at bay. He's a convincing, friendly point-of-view man, however, and his voice succeeds at drawing us into this hilarious, poignant novel of academe.

Continuing funding slashes have got rumours of staff cutbacks running rampant, and Hank's colleagues suspect him of having prepared a "list" that recommends who should get the boot, regardless of tenure. Hank hasn't, but it's not in his character to tell them if he has or not, and the English department threatens mutiny, calling a vote for a new chair.

That each and every member of the department should fear firing is not surprising, for paranoia is part of the academic game, and every person on staff has good reason for suspecting he, or she, won't make the grade. There's white linen-suited Finny, who outed himself just long enough to get divorced before reverting to claims of heterosexuality that no one believes, and who has a Ph.D. from American Sonora University, an institution that exists, so far as we've been able to determine, only on letterhead and in the form of a post office box in Del Rio, Texas, the onetime home, if I'm not mistaken, of Wolfman Jack.

There's nontenured Campbell "Orshee" Wheemer, the pony-tailed protofeminist who forbids books and writing in his classes (he uses taped TV sitcoms and makes his students turn in video cassettes for semester projects), who appends every use of the masculine pronoun in department meetings with "or she." There's aging prima-donna poet Gracie DuBois, whom every man in the college lusted over back when she was hired twenty years ago, now gone to fat; she's got a harassment suit in the works against Hank concerning his eternal wisecracking. There's meek Teddy Barnes, Hank's erstwhile best friend, who's been a little bit in love with Hank's wife for years; there's June, Teddy's wife, who is rumoured to be having an affair with Orshee. There's Paul Rourke, Hank's nemesis and neighbor, who's sworn never to laugh at anything Hank says. And then there's Hank, who hasn't published a book since his own hiring almost half his lifetime ago.

While he wrestles with this motley crew over department matters, Hank's got much more in life that demands his attention. His daughter, who has failed to inherit Hank or his wife Lily's love of language and writing, is in deep debt over her house (a copy of her parents') and on the outs with her unemployed husband. Hank himself is unsure whether or not he'd care if he got canned. Lily is checking out distant job opportunities, and Hank vaguely suspects that she's having an affair with his dean.

His adopted dog has developed enough self-assurance to "groin" everyone who visits. He worries that he's developing a stone -- as runs in the men in his family -- due to his having one hell of a time trying to pee. The biggest thing is perhaps his mother's informing him that the man he's tried hard not to think much about for most of his life, the father who deserted Hank and his mother for a succession of trophy graduate students, is going to be making a reappearance, perhaps for good, in their lives.

This novel of campus, family, midlife crisis and death threats against ducks bursts with humor and tenderness. Richard Russo has created characters who come quickly to colourful life. You won't want the story to end because you want to keep on seeing Hank Devereaux's world through his incomparable eyes. You will, however, be happy that you spent some time along with him for the ride.

Writing about regular people with regular lives is Russo's forte. His ability to turn the mundane or ordinary into nuanced stories is incredible. He also writes with amazing humour and wit. I laughed out loud reading this novel and give it 5 stars.

[booksinthebelfrey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If measured by the number of laugh-out-loud moments it provides, this is quite possibly the funniest book I have ever read. No one who has spent (done?) time in academia should miss it, and even those outside the ivy-covered walls will appreciate Russo's hapless characters and deliriously absurd situations.

[bkohl_6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

On one level, this is a hilarious satire on academia, highly recommended for anyone who works in or around a college or university. A funny book would have gotten 4 stars. The fifth star is for the truthful portrait of someone who knows but doesn't know - whose heart and feet are running on two different tracks. The scene (in the dean's office bathroom) where the protagonist suddenly realizes where his feet are taking him is funny and honest. The professional observer/writer character who lacks introspection could have been easy, but concentrating most of that theme in his personal relationships makes him come across as more of a goofy dad than an absentminded professor.

[andy5185 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I probably could've given this more time, but I just wasn't in the mood for an aging, snarky professor protagonist. I may come back to it later.

[rosalita_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I’m a sucker for a good satire of academia, and Richard Russo never disappoints. Administrative idiocy and departmental budget cuts are timeless “laugh to keep from crying” topics, especially for a narrator whose biggest flaw in the eyes of his friends and colleagues is his refusal to take anything seriously.

[dairyqueen84 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book the first time I read it and I'm loving it again. I'm reading it for my book club. William Henry Deveraux, Jr. is the chair of a university English department. The book takes place during one week in the zany life of Henry, his wife, his colleagues and his father, who was also a university professor. Russo is just laugh out loud funny; I love him.

[hardlyhardy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“In English departments the most serious competition is for the role of straight man.” — Richard Russo, “Straight Man”Bob Newhart has been an extremely funny comedian for decades, but in all of his situation comedies he was the straight man. The humor came in his reactions to the zany behavior of other characters. That's sort of the situation in Richard Russo's 1997 novel “Straight Man.”William Henry Devereaux Jr., son of a noted literary critic who abandoned his family years ago for a series of sexy students, is himself a professor of literature, temporarily made the department chairman despite his reputation on the faculty for a lack of seriousness. Yet on this faculty he is the Newhart, the one who observes and reacts to the strangeness and silliness going on around him.Other faculty members are much like him, someone who came to this small Pennsylvania college as a promising young scholar and now realizes his career has nowhere to go. He got his position in the first place on the strength of a first novel, but there has never been a second. He's bored teaching writing to students with little writing talent, but he has tenure. He discovers his secretary, with whom he is half in love (affection for spouses and others is given percentages in this novel) is a better writer than he is.Devereaux finds himself the department head at a time of threatened budget cuts and the possibility of staff reductions. Other English professors are convinced Devereaux has their names on a list of those to be axed, while the dean pressures him to make such a list. Meanwhile his daughter's marriage reaches a crisis, his wife has gone away on business and he wonders if she will ever return, a handyman is in love with his difficult mother and then his father, now aged and repenting only of misjudging Charles Dickens, returns home.Russo has a gift for writing hilarious serious novels, and “Straight Man” is one such novel. Its pleasures are many.

[booksinthebelfry · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If measured by the number of laugh-out-loud moments it provides, this is quite possibly the funniest book I have ever read. No one who has spent (done?) time in academia should miss it, and even those outside the ivy-covered walls will appreciate Russo's hapless characters and deliriously absurd situations.

[oldblack-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Russo does a pretty good job of constructing an interesting story which has moments of great humour. The politics and intrigue of a university English department are well portrayed, as well as the personal lives of aged 50-ish inhabitants. OK, it's not all entirely believable, but it's sufficiently grounded in reality to make the reader wonder whether some of those fantastic scenes might really come about.

[ted_newell-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It s not too much of a spoiler that William Henry Devereaux and his wife run separately at the start and together at the end. Plot set in academic mid-life, premised on being stuck as in the not-very-high-budget movie "Tenure." Sardonic, ironic, aching. Cast of fools including his department and himself, and he sees it all with jaundiced eye.

[jeffome · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nice fun read.....several laugh out loud moments for me. Just another seemingly normal guy caught up in the antics of a paranoid small-town University English Department, of which he finds himself temporary head, going through a difficult time. He is sort of a spontaneous, shoot from the hip sort of fella, and it is a style that does not always serve him well....Yet there is this optimistic attitude that he has that permeates the whole book that saves him......he accepts that it really does not matter what he does.......things will resolve and work out.....maybe even for the better. I found the ending a wee bit long and drawn out and it sort of killed the momentum that was sailing along quite nicely before.....but that is my only complaint. Special kudos to his creation of Mr. Purty, who definitely was my favorite character....I've known several Mr. Purtys in my life and i am thankful to have one so brilliantly captured in this book......I've enjoyed every one of my 4 Russos so far and will eagerly look forward to the next.

[lylee-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Humorous glimpse into thoughtful few weeks of rural Pennsylvanian professor's life.

[bexaplex · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

On one level, this is a hilarious satire on academia, highly recommended for anyone who works in or around a college or university. A funny book would have gotten 4 stars. The fifth star is for the truthful portrait of someone who knows but doesn't know - whose heart and feet are running on two different tracks. The scene (in the dean's office bathroom) where the protagonist suddenly realizes where his feet are taking him is funny and honest. The professional observer/writer character who lacks introspection could have been easy, but concentrating most of that theme in his personal relationships makes him come across as more of a goofy dad than an absentminded professor.

[limelite_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Why did I wait so long to get to this novel by one of my favorite authors? Howlingly funny satire of academia and, simultaneously, the age-old curse of a son trying to live up to or live down the burden of a father’s fame and repute.This is a wide-ranging novel that explores the mid-life crisis, professional headaches, personal angst, and antipathy to geese of one Railton, PA resident and academician, William Henry Devereaux Jr. He can never let slip an opportunity to make a quick comeback, to shaft authority in acts of rather juvenile rebelliousness, and to thwart expectations. WHD, Jr. is haunted by his philandering father’s (who remains offstage almost the entire novel) greater reputation. ''When all is said and done, I'm an English professor, like my father. The most striking difference between him and me is that he's been a successful one.''Don’t look for plot here. Look for trenchant wit, ambling prose, true voices, and a cast of screwballs that make one tremble for higher education. The question is, can WHD, Jr. find peace, save his daughter’s marriage -- and preserve his own, fulfill (by avoidance) his academic ambitions, escape his enemies and his superiors’ designs on him, all while remaining true to himself and not changing too much so that he becomes a colorless drone? Happily, the answer is, "Yes!"Russo hasn’t written a funnier and simultaneously more poignant book (or I have yet to read it) that explores his favorite theme of father/son relationships. If you've been to college or work in one you will delight in this spoof of ivy-covered ivory towers and the personalities that are found in them.

[laine4cunningham · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Really liked this one. A bit heavy handed with the one-liners after a while but I suppose there's no getting around that for this particular protagonist.
Russo is just a fantastic author all around. I liked this book a lot. Had some truly ridiculous scenes, very amusing, and yet managed to work on a realistic and serious level. Much like life, which is where Russo really shines.

[pam8enser · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amazing. I must read more. Russo lovers, what should I read next?

And what's funny is that I've worked with or have known probably most of the professors in this book. Especially Hank.

[bethanydhart · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An altogether gleeful and brutal look at academia (and perhaps humanity). Hilarious characterizations are paired with quiet insights for a satisfying dichotomy. Throughout it all, I felt Mr. Russo wielding the English language gorgeously in order to preach clearly and directly to me. Is that a positive attribute or...?

[casualfriday_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hank Deveraux is chair of the English department at a mediocre Pennsylvania university. A prickly eccentric, he is under fire from his colleagues, who are especially nervous about rumored budget cuts and layoffs. During one spectacularly bad day, he is stabbed in the nose by a poet, and goes before TV cameras threatening to kill a duck a day until his department is given a budget. Meanwhile, Hank's hated father, a famed literary scholar, comes back into his life, and Hank must ask himself whether he has attained his life's most cherished goal: being as little like his father as possible.I never would have picked this one up except for its being my library's January book club selection, but I really, really enjoyed it. I can't testify to the accuracy of its portrayal of academic life, but I can testify to the laugh-out-loud humor laced throughout the book. It's also quite sweet, in its own way. Hank is an exasperating asshole most of the time, but he manages to be an endearing character all the same.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm really not a fan of Richard Russo, but this book was different -- a campus comedy -- and it struck my fancy. It is a funny and involving novel from the author of Mohawk and Nobody's Fool. With writing teacher Hank Devereaux Richard Russo has created an English professor who is truly fun to read about. Devereaux has written one novel (Off the Road) and has settled into an embattled stint as department head at an academic sinkhole where he finds it prudent to simply tread water and go with the flow. Hank tries to keep his wits about him by adopting the philosophical principle known as Occam's Razor (that the simplest explanation of a phenomenon or problem is usually the correct one), but his life keeps getting in the way. He is surrounded by stereotypical characters who unexpectedly are full of colorful life. And, in addition to possible prostate cancer, Hank is assailed by even more undignified woes: His nose is bloodied by a poet's notebook, and he's suspected (with good reason) of murdering a goose--and of even worse things--by a hilarious, vividly rendered cadre of fellow academics, townspeople, and students, each of whom is sharply individualized. Plot is only secondary in a Russo novel. This one seduces and charms with its voice (i.e., Hank Devereaux's): Laconic, deadpan, disarmingly modest and self-effacing, it's the perfect vehicle for one of Russo's irresistible revelations of the agreeable craziness of everyday life. I did not want the story to end because of the way Russo mixes all of the characters together. It was a book that made me happy that I spent some time along with him for the ride.

[jvandehy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An enjoyable read. Wonderful writing. The story, set in the mid-nineties, has some comic scenes and situations, along with caricatures of typical small mid-western university types. Like other good and bad stories about college professors, its a vehicle for the author to set down two characters and have them discuss the author's take on our world. It works in this novel because Richard Russo is clever and his characters are interesting and dynamic - you will be charmed by their thoughts and evolution. On another note, this book is dated - no emails, no cell phones, it was a different world,1997.

[browner56 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There is a great scene at the end of ‘Straight Man’ that really epitomizes a big part of what the novel is all about. A large group of professors at a going away party for one of their colleagues has crowded into a small room and shut the door. Since the door swings inward, however, when it is time leave all of the professors rush forward at once, making it impossible to open the door and escape. As Hank Devereaux, the main character in this wonderful satire of modern campus life, explains: “Clearly, the only solution was for all of us to take one step backward so that the door could be pulled open. By this point a group of plumbers, a group of bricklayers, a group of hookers, a group of chimpanzees would have figured this out. But the room contained, unfortunately, a group of academics, and we couldn’t quite believe what had happened to us.”Believe it or not, this actually represents a happy (or at least a fitting) ending, given all of the seriocomic events that have preceded it. The story centers on Hank, the acting chairman of an extremely dysfunctional English Department at a mediocre state university that is undergoing deep budget cuts. To make matters worse, Hank is in the throes of a mid-life crisis that has its roots in his strained (to say the least) relationship with his mother and father. Hank’s issues manifest themselves in both mental and physical forms and lead to several truly hilarious passages, including ones where he threatens on camera to kill a duck a day until the budget problems are resolved or crawls into the ceiling above his office to avoid his colleagues and ends up spying on a faculty meeting. In the hands of a writer less talented than Russo, all of this could feel contrived or even fall flat altogether. ‘Straight Man’, though, is a dead-on treatment of the pure folly that often underlies the politics and relationships—both personal and professional—at a large university. But as humorous as the book is—and it is really, really funny—the author manages to deliver serious messages on themes such aging, loyalty to both family and professional colleagues, confronting one’s past, and suicide. As someone who has worked in higher education for more than thirty years, I make it a point to read as many campus novels as possible. Without question, this one has to be placed near the top of that list.

[jasonpettus · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

[Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography (cclapcenter.com). I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.]I was all excited when I first stumbled across this in the "New Additions" section of the Chicago Public Library's ebook collection, because I thought I had randomly come across Pulitzer winner Richard Russo's newest title just minutes after it had been announced at the website, and therefore was going to get to check it out before anybody else; but in fact, although it was new to their collection, the book itself is from 1997, and in fact is one of the more well-loved ones of his entire career. A gentle character-based comedy about life among academes in a small college town, like Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys and Jane Smiley's Moo it takes the self-reflective topic of writing professors on a closed campus (usually a no-no in writing guides for beginners) and embraces it for all it's worth, really delving into the quirky little details that come specifically with academic life, but spicing it up with enough interesting plot developments to make it much more than the usual piece of circle-jerking masturbation than the "writing professor writing about writing professors" subgenre usually produces. And of course, in this case things are helped immensely as well by the main character being such a fascinatingly complex and charming curmudgeon, an aging fiction professor who has long ago accepted his fate at the third-tier podunk college where they all gossip and backbite, and who in his very mild way has decided to rage against the machine which is campus pettiness, combining a world-weary attitude with occasional bursts of M*A*S*H-style outrageous actions, including his habit of playing the Motley Fool whenever in front of the local media just to stir up more crap for his overlords on the school's board of directors. I usually have a low tolerance for this kind of metafictional material, but again like Wonder Boys and Moo this is a rare exception, expressly because Russo takes the time and energy to put together a wonderfully entertaining, sometimes legitimately thrilling story to take place in this environment, instead of the usual endless whiny screeds about middle-aged men having affairs with their 19-year-old students. It comes hugely recommended, and makes me even more excited than I was to finally tackle his Pulitzer-winning Empire Falls for the CCLaP 100 later this year.