[In the following review, Jacobs commends the “complex” and “witty” protagonist of Straight Man.]

There is no denying the voyeuristic allure of a novel set in your own backyard, or in one that very much resembles it, and peopled by your neighbors. This is certainly part of the charm of Straight Man. It is a novel of academe, and better yet, the central character is an English professor surrounded by the wondrous diversity of beleaguered souls who have also chosen that profession. But Richard Russo's work is more than merely “an academic novel,” meaning it is not limited by a fusty formula. Neither is it a genre novel which focuses on an exploration of undergraduate peccadilloes, a kind of borderline bordello novel. Rather, Russo's fourth novel (after Mohawk, The Risk Pool, and Nobody's Fool) is a complex, witty, and moving portrait of a very intelligent, middle-aged man trapped in a variety of ways.

William Henry “Hank” Devereaux Jr., the son of an eminent English professor and critic, wrote a well-received novel, Off the Road, early in his career, but he has produced nothing since. He is currently the chair of the English Department at West Central Pennsylvania University, an institution of which few of its inhabitants are proud. He has a wife who leaves town early in the novel, although her presence permeates his thoughts during all his adventures. He also has a daughter who is going through marital difficulties and a house with a lovely view that is the envy of several of his colleagues. But these are the bare facts of a life, the given circumstances, if you will. What is most engaging to the reader is the ironic yet passionate relationship Hank Devereaux has to all the elements of his life.

Adrift in midlife and midcareer angst, exacerbated or perhaps evidenced by the fact that he struggles with a full bladder yet is unable to urinate with any power, he is certain that his prostate has, as had his father's before him, gone bad. He tries to simplify his life, to rid it of everyone else's complications, including his daughter and her woes, the beautiful adult daughter of a colleague who is an adjunct faculty member and signals her availability by leaving him ripe peaches, the antagonistic colleague who tries to best him at every turn, and students who write all too convincingly about necrophilia. He struggles to live by the rule of Occam's Razor—keeping everything as simple as possible—yet winds up giving in to some of his passions, not the adulterous ones, but those would be much less hilarious than his threatening to kill a goose on local TV.

Russo has a fine comic ear, split-second timing, and an eye for the absurdity of everyday life. Moreover, his ability to use dialogue to limn character in the midst of this first-person narrative is exquisite. Devereaux himself is at once participant and observer in his own life, constantly aware of the ambiguities of his world just as any good academic should be. His voice and his struggle to find a kind of peace outside the furor of petty politics, bureaucrats, tenure, and promotion will make a mark in the reader's mind well after the plot has faded. Devereaux is an intellectual for our time, suffused with pop culture, psychological awareness, and a continually threatened commitment to the life of the mind. Straight Man is a wonderfully satisfying novel.