This incident truly made me burst out laughing, which is an extremely rare occurrence for me even when I am reading a really hilarious book.

Here we have a down-at-heel college professor who is constantly bored with his mundane job. He has to deal with the never-ending office politics and the in-fighting among his colleagues on a daily basis.

The whole situation is just a scream, filled with absurdities and comical moments. What's even more remarkable is that it manages to end on a chuckle, which is not an easy feat to accomplish.

It's as if the author has masterfully crafted a story that takes you on a rollercoaster ride of emotions, starting from boredom and frustration and ending with a sense of light-heartedness and amusement.

This book is definitely a must-read for anyone who is looking for a good laugh and a break from the daily grind.

One of those novels that happen in time or don't happen - and it's not clear what this says about the book or its reader.

Despite the pleasant spirit of the university country of wonders, a whole bunch of novice and experienced comical old ladies and old men, and in places a very familiar sur - this is rather a convincing story about how comfortable it is to exist inside one's own head while all kinds of things are happening and being made around.

The novel seems to take the reader on a journey through a world that is both strange and familiar. The characters are vividly drawn, and their antics add a touch of humor to the story.

However, beneath the surface, there is a deeper message about the human condition. It makes us think about how we perceive the world around us and how we choose to respond to it.

Overall, this is a thought-provoking and entertaining read that will leave you with much to ponder.

Now I will say something inconvenient for a fan of Richard Russo - this is a rather mediocre book.

After "Empire Falls", which I fell in love with two years ago, I read "That Old Cape Magic". It's a pity that the Phantom Press chose a vintage, twenty-year-old novel with a gander and a false nose, when Russo has a very fresh, enchanting "Cape Magic" that proves that a good writer can create better at sixty-nine than at forty-seven.

The protagonist is a forty-nine-year-old professor with a permanent contract, who holds the position of the head of the English literature department at a provincial university in Pennsylvania. He is happily married and the father of two adult daughters. The eldest lives far away and doesn't cause trouble, while the younger, after getting married and starting to build a house next door, has become a source of constant headache for Hank.

Well, because building a house is a vacuum cleaner that sucks up all the money you had, have, and will ever have. And Julie and Russell are not the most practical people, their incomes are unstable. The parents have already lent them a huge amount of money, and now the construction is frozen, and it's unknown if it will ever resume. Meanwhile, Julie's marriage is falling apart at the seams. In general, it's better not to think about it.

Just as he shouldn't think too often about the fact that in his youth, William Henry Devereaux Jr. was a promising young writer, and his first (and so far only) novel received a rave review in The New Yorker. At that time, it seemed that a glamorous life as a fashionable intellectual writer was ahead.

And of course, he will surpass his father, William Henry Devereaux Sr., a star of English literature, the author of many non-fiction bestsellers, a handsome man and a womanizer who left them with their mother to marry a graduate student when Hank was ten. And now, the aging womanizer is coming back. But it's also better not to think about that.

So what should he think about? About the terrifying prospect of budget cuts that could lead to layoffs, and the fact that most of his colleagues are convinced that he, as the head of the department, is already preparing lists of the least valuable employees? And you can't explain to these grown, educated people that the passion for sequestering the budget starts every year in April and miraculously disappears by November - the academic establishment has a powerful lobby. Well, maybe they'll cut the copying costs.

In general, it's the ordinary life of an ordinary, not-too-successful, not-too-stupid, decent man who has passed his prime but is not yet on the verge of old age and has no serious health problems. Who would have thought that his wife's week-long trip to her father would serve as a trigger for a chain of absurd, grotesque, and partly idiotic events, during which the hero discovers all the charms of a full life à la O. Henry ("He who has not known poverty, love, and war has not lived a full life").

Now I will say something inconvenient for a fan of Richard Russo - this is a rather mediocre book. After reading "That Old Cape Magic", I was disappointed compared to "Empire Falls". The problem is that these two novels have many points of contact. Again, it's about growing up in a family of two professors: a brilliant father and a much less noticeable mother who endures her husband's endless affairs and finally leaves, abandoning the family for a young graduate student. He will cheat on her constantly, and the son, as he grows up, will do everything to not be like his father, but in some ways, he will inevitably reflect him. And his beloved wife will leave him after twenty years of marriage, saying that she has been deeply unhappy with him all these years.

All of this is against the backdrop of the real problems of a not-too-successful college professor who was once a not-too-famous screenwriter and now has a published novel that he left to his wife along with the house. He is struggling with debts to pay for his daughter's decent wedding - problems that are much closer to today's Russian reader than the fabricated worries with a stupid gander.

Unfortunately, "The Mediocre Man" misses the mark. Compared to "That Old Cape Magic", it is only a pale imitation. What's even more annoying is that Richard Russo is a rare example of a writer whose talent grows with age, and Russian readers could have become acquainted with a truly strong, bright, and powerful book at the level of "Empire Falls".

I don't want to rate Richard Russo's Straight Man just one star, but I feel compelled to do so. After reading the first fifty pages or so, I began to have aversions. The more I delved into it, the stronger my dislike grew. Now that I've completed all 391 pages, which were mostly a painful experience, I'm annoyed with myself for allowing this frustrating book to distract me. I don't feel as if I've gained any knowledge or been adequately entertained. A friend recommended this book to me, claiming it was a story about academic dysfunction, a state with which we're both familiar. However, it's more of a story about a highly frustrating and despicable man whom I wanted to smack quite early on.

William Henry Devereaux, Jr. is a tenured English professor at a small, mediocre liberal arts university. He's also the temporary chair of the English department. The university is plagued by rumors of budget cuts, and as the chair, his colleagues assume he knows the truth behind the rumors and which positions will be cut. Hank (as he's known) protests that he knows nothing. His wife, Lily, is a teacher at the local high school. Their younger daughter, Julie, is married to Russell. They're overspending their budget by building a house near them. His father, William Henry Devereaux, Sr., PhD, is a legend in the academic world for his books on literary analysis. He also abandoned his wife and child many years ago. Now he's moving back to town to live with his long-divorced first wife, Hank's mother. While trying to teach his classes and manage his personal life, Hank must also attempt to keep the hysteria and dysfunction of his department under control before the dean and the CEO (I'm guessing this is another name for the president of the university) decides to fire the entire lot of them.

Apart from the occasional sentence that made me laugh or with which I could nod in agreement, I didn't like this book. Ironically, the two best-written and most compelling sections of the book are the stories within the story written by Hank for the local paper. The first is about his first dog, and the second is about his father. They're both touching, funny, and engaging. I enjoyed them. Unlike the rest of the book, which I rarely found touching, funny, or compelling. I don't know what the point of this damn book is. Hank has to be one of the most annoying, frustrating, and despicable characters I've ever had the misfortune to spend time with. He's absolutely useless. He seems to me to be a useless husband because he's oblivious to everything and doesn't seem to pay attention to anything happening in his personal life. He's also a real pain in the ass as a colleague and chair of the English department. He responds to his colleagues' concerns about the budget crisis (and their possible loss of jobs) by ignoring them, joking about it, and when it's time for him to take some kind of action, he does absolutely nothing—like the useless coward he is. He doesn't take a stand on anything. That's so frustrating to me! He doesn't fight anything, he doesn't state his convictions, he just treats everything and everyone like a huge joke. I understand his reluctance to create a list of colleagues who should be cut. I would be reluctant too. However, he's at least in a position to exert some influence over the decisions and cut the faculty who are terrible (and he has opinions about that) and try to save the jobs of others who are decent. He doesn't even try. He never tries to accomplish anything, not one thing, throughout the entire novel. He never even thinks creatively about the situation—how to ease the pain for some of these people, how to maybe get them a decent severance package, nothing. Hank is a despicable person. He spends his days avoiding the union officer, the dean, his coworkers, his mother, and any other problem that inconveniences him. No wonder the damn man couldn't pee (and his urinary difficulties were mentioned a great deal, often in the context of a childish joke. Just shut up about it already). To make matters worse, he's rewarded for his bullshit cowardice. In the epilogue, everything is tied up so neatly it made me sick. His wife gets a better job, he gets a better teaching schedule, a grant they proposed years ago is rediscovered and awarded, his daughter and son-in-law get back together and unload their expensive house and get jobs in Atlanta, and the English department—so full of people who hated each other—now all get along! And have barbeques together and play basketball! Yippee! Are you fucking kidding me? Hate. What was the point of all of Hank's philosophical moaning and bullshit "jokes" when it all turns out so hunky-dory in the end?

Other than a few jabs at academia ("He's been a reasonably well-intentioned, lazy, honorable, mildly incompetent dean, and that's the best you can hope for." 246 and "Anyone who observed us would conclude the purpose of all academic discussion was to provide the grounds for becoming further entrenched in our original positions." 201—that one is so true it's just barely funny), I didn't enjoy this book. Most of what I disliked about this book (aside from the fact that it seems to have had no point at all) revolves around the character of Hank. I disliked how he would often refer to himself in the third person, using his full name: "William Henry Devereaux, Jr." I disliked his near-constant phrase: "I'm not X, but I can play that role." I think he is all those things he said he wasn't. The constant referral to William of Occam, the philosopher, and his "Occam's Razor" philosophy made me grind my teeth. Stop! Rachel, Hank's secretary, is unable to speak in declarative sentences, so everything she says sounds like a question. Do you know how fucking irritating it is to read dialogue by a character that always ends in question marks? It's really irritating, and unfortunately, Rachel had too much to say. She's also another one of the characters who had wonderful things happen for her at the end of the book. There's a definite lack of decent female characters in this book. There are very few women characters in this novel who aren't slutty, drunk, bitchy, or generally useless. One of them is Hank's saintly wife, but she's barely a character and is absent for 99% of the novel.

I regret buying this book. I disliked it very much, and Hank is a useless asshole who needs to grow the fuck up. This book is more about Hank the 50-year-old juvenile than a commentary on academic life (which is why I bought it). Dear Committee Members is a much sharper and better-written commentary on the frustrating reality of modern academia than Straight Man. I don't recommend this book unless you enjoy reading about useless, cowardly men who make lame jokes out of everything while experiencing a mid-life crisis.

This has got to be one of the quirkiest novels I've ever read.

The funniest sentence in the whole book is: "It's not an easy thing to be left holding a piece of fruit during introductions."

There are also other great lines. For example, "I'm not a _____________, but I can play that role." And "He was a small man. Left-handed. He walked with a limp. He served in India. So much is obvious, but beyond this I can tell you nothing except that he may have recently eaten asparagus."

This is the fourth Russo book I've read, and I seem to be in the minority when I say I like his other novels a little better. As always, he writes well and tells a good story. However, some of the humor in Straight Man is a little too slapstick and Monty Python-esque for me. I understand the humor, but I just don't think it's as funny as others seem to think. That being said, there were some places where I had to put the book down and hold my gut from laughing. The prologue, in particular, is very funny. It really sets the tone for the rest of the book and makes you eager to see what other crazy things will happen.

Not much to say about this one. I was highly disappointed. I read this solely because of my affinity for Russo's Pulitzer Prize winning "Empire Falls". However, this seemed as if it were written by a completely different author. The goose on the cover gives a deceiving impression that this is funny or silly, but it is neither. Maybe it tries to be, but it fails miserably.

Mundane and uninteresting stories fill the novel. It tells about a week in the protagonist's middle-aged years. Annoyingly, he talks about himself in the third person, using his full name, William Henry Devereaux, Jr., intermittently. The head of the English Department in a subpar Pennsylvania university where he grew up, in the course of a single week, Devereaux will have his nose mangled by an angry colleague, imagine his wife is having an affair with his dean, wonder if a curvaceous adjunct is trying to seduce him with peach pits, and threaten to execute a goose. There is very little character change from beginning to end. At least if there is, Russo did not describe it eloquently or well.

Maybe I missed something obvious, but I have not the faintest idea what the title means. The publisher claims it to be "hilarious", but I could not disagree more. This book simply did not live up to my expectations.

Well done.

The second half of the book was truly hilarious in parts. Russo did an excellent job of maintaining the story at the perfect length that complemented the narrative flawlessly.

What's more, Russo has a remarkable talent for simultaneously depicting hope and despair. This ability adds a layer of depth and complexity to the characters and the overall storyline.

It makes the readers engage with the story on a much deeper level, as they can vividly experience the emotions and struggles of the characters.

Russo's writing style is engaging and captivating, keeping the readers hooked from start to finish.

Overall, it is a great book that I would highly recommend to anyone looking for an entertaining and thought-provoking read.

Philip Roth is indeed a remarkable author who has the unique ability to evoke both laughter and tears within the same book. However, Richard Russo comes very close with this particular novel.

It is truly a hilarious read, filled with smart and clever dialogue that keeps the reader engaged from start to finish. The characters are endearing, especially the main character, Hank.

Even though I am not yet in middle age, I can still see myself relating to Hank in certain aspects. His experiences, fears, anxieties, and doubts are universal and relatable to everyone.

The novel does an excellent job of exploring the human condition and the various emotions that come with it. It makes you think, laugh, and maybe even shed a tear or two.

Overall, this is a great novel that I would highly recommend to anyone looking for a good read. It's a must-read for fans of Philip Roth and Richard Russo alike.

William Henry Devereaux Jr., affectionately known as Hank, holds the position of chair in a quarrelsome English department at West Central Pennsylvania University. This department is constantly plagued by budget issues and deep-rooted personal grudges among its members. At first glance, this might seem like a rather dull premise. However, the events that unfold throughout the course of the book, which I believe takes place within a span of just a week or two, are surprisingly humorous. And yet, it's not merely a comic novel; the story is told with great sincerity.

The first thing I must mention is that, having read Russo's Empire Falls just a couple of months ago, I found Straight Man to be completely different. Upon reflection, it's evident that they are both the works of the same author, as the writing style, characterization, and some of the humor are similar. But in many other aspects, they are nothing alike. Empire Falls captivated me from the very start, whereas it took a bit longer for Straight Man to draw me in. It was interesting and well-written, but it wasn't until approximately halfway through that I suddenly realized how attached I had become to the characters and how eager I was to see how everything would turn out. Once I reached that point, however, Straight Man became a real page-turner. It was funny, I cared about the characters (even the unlikable ones), and it ended exactly as it should have.

I was in desperate need of a good laugh, and this novel provided just that.

It tells the story of a dysfunctional English department, a midlife crisis, and a goose, which made me chuckle at our rather absurd situation as academics.

The last chapter left me on the edge of my seat, hanging in anticipation. However, the epilogue neatly tied up the loose ends and completed the story, all with a single, witty one-liner.

The audiobook version was also extremely well done. The narrator's voice brought the characters and the story to life, adding an extra layer of enjoyment to the whole experience.

Overall, this was a highly entertaining read that managed to combine humor, absurdity, and a touch of pathos in a way that kept me engaged from start to finish.

I once had a phase where I was completely engrossed in watching old M*A*S*H episodes. They were truly hilarious, especially the early seasons. The characters and their antics had me in stitches. However, after a while, I started to wish that Hawkeye, the beloved character with his Groucho Marx-like quips and indomitable spirit in the face of war's horrors, would answer someone seriously for a change.

It took me some time to realize that the protagonist of Straight Man, Hank Devereaux, is that kind of wise guy. But while Hawkeye was genial, Devereaux is somewhat off-putting. He directs his smart-assery at everyone, whether it's his family or colleagues. You can't help but feel the frustration of those in his life who can never have a sincere conversation with him.

Middle-aged and married, Hank Devereaux is a tenured college professor and the interim chair of the English Dept. at a low-tier university in west-central Pennsylvania. With rumors of lay-offs swirling, everyone in his department is pestering him for insider information. His chronic wise-cracking has only strained these professional relationships further. It's clear that for some reason, Hank's modus operandi is to keep people at a distance with his smart mouth. There's a risk that this might also keep the reader at arm's length. But, miraculously, it doesn't.

For one thing, Russo's writing is just so excellent that you can't put the book down. I'd forgotten how skilled he is at constructing a story and writing engaging dialogue that's impossible to resist. I'd read and loved Empire Falls many years ago and it's probably time for a re-read. In Straight Man, Russo's superb storytelling is on full display. His tone is confident, sharp, and witty.

Secondly, Hank Devereaux gradually becomes a sympathetic character. Around the mid-point, Hank starts goading someone who truly deserves it in a particularly entertaining scene. But by this time, I found myself already warming to Hank. He may be a smart-aleck, but he's not so arrogant that he can't see his own flaws. Over the course of the eventful days described in the book, we see his sharp tongue get him into and out of trouble. We also see a self-deprecating side to his humor. His ongoing internal dialogue reveals important backstory, a deeper understanding of his character, and his relationships with others. And as the book closes, there just might be some signs of new growth in Hank.

Straight Man is an entertaining, humorous, and well-paced read that gets better and better as you progress. The writing is so sharp that it almost demands to be read aloud. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's a really, really good read.

The beginning was rather slow. In fact, I almost put the book down and didn't bother to finish it.

However, I'm truly glad that I persevered and continued reading.

As I delved deeper into the story, it gradually began to unfold and capture my interest.

The characters became more vivid, and the plot thickened, drawing me in and making me eager to know what would happen next.

If I had given up at the beginning, I would have missed out on this engaging and enjoyable read.

It just goes to show that sometimes, it's worth pushing through the initial slowness to discover the hidden gems within a book or any other endeavor.

So, the next time you encounter something that starts off slowly, don't be too quick to abandon it. You might be pleasantly surprised by what lies ahead.