You may be more familiar with Russo as the author of the best-selling "Empire Falls", but "Straight Man", one of his earlier works, is also worth reading. It is an interesting study of one week in the life college professor/author William Henry (Hank) Deveraux, Jr. , whose father abandoned Hank and his mother 40 years earlier and has now come back into their lives.
At times the book is uproariously funny. In one scene Hank, who is experiencing "flow" problems that he believes are caused by a kidney stone, has an "accident" while napping in his office and ends up climbing into a hole in the ceiling to hide from his colleagues. While there, he observes a meeting from above and overhears one of the attendees commenting about the awful unidentified smell in the room. In another scene Hank, wearing a fake nose and glasses combo, holds a goose up by the neck and threatens to "kill a duck a day" until he gets his department budget. This incident is caught on tape by a TV crew and ends up on Good Morning America.
At other times, I had difficulty maintaining my interest in this novel, but I suspect that this is because it is really man's fiction, written by a man and about a man. Although I found the struggles of the English Department very realistic, having several friends who teach in colleges, I wasn't really impressed with the development of the characters or the relationships between them. There were many troubled marriages and parent-child problems that I would have liked to see examined in more detail, but that might have resulted in a novel more reminiscent women's fiction. I appreciate the humor and I believe the book to be well-written, but it is not my cup of tea. Don't let my opinion stop you from reading it, though! It's just a matter of taste!
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