Straight Man (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Richard Russo
- First Published: 1997
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: A week during spring semester, sometime in the early 1990’s
- Setting: West Central Pennsylvania College, in Railton
- Principal Characters: William Henry (Hank) Devereux, Jr., William Henry Devereux, Sr., Lily Devereux, Angelo Capice, Julie Devereux Russell, Dickie Pope, Teddy Barnes, Jacob Rose, Paul Rourke, Finny Coomb, Billy Quigley, Rachel, Gracie DuBois, Tony Coniglia
- Genres: Long fiction, Farce
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, Authors or writers, College life, Blackmail, Drugs, Diseases, Animals, Comedians
- Locales: Pennsylvania
Richard Russo’s Straight Man invalidates the widely held notion in academe that nothing happens in a department during an interim chair’s watch. Up to a point, fiction mirrors life in Russo’s most ambitious novel, his fourth. William Henry (Hank) Devereux, Jr., who teaches creative writing, was appointed as department chair pro tempore only because he was considered safe. For the last twenty years engulfed in stagnant grievances and unfulfilled ambitions, the crabby English faculty at West Central Pennsylvania College assume they can rely on him, as undistinguished as they,...
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