About “Straight Man”
William Henry Devereaux, Jr., is the chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University, where he navigates a series of personal and professional crises during a single week. He threatens to execute a goose, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers his secretary writes better fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and confronts his philandering elderly father at an abandoned amusement park.
Praise for “Straight Man”
“The funniest serious novel I have read since—well, maybe since Portnoy's Complaint.”
“There is a big, wry heart beating at the center of Russo's fiction.”
“[Russo] skewers academic pretensions and infighting with mad abandon...in a clear and muscular prose that is a pleasaure to read....I had to stop often to guffaw, gasp, wheeze, and wipe away my tears.”
Book details
- Published
- 1997
- Latest edition
- 1997 · ISBN 9780375701900
- ISBN
- 9780375701900
Frequently asked questions
How many pages is Straight Man?
Straight Man by Richard Russo has 416 pages.
More by Richard Russo
Book descriptions, author biographies, award records and review quotes on this page are courtesy of Penguin Random House.