Straight Man

Richard Russo

What can I say about this novel? It's easily the best book I've read this year and maybe the last couple years running. It's laugh out loud funny and filled with great characters, most of which inhabit the English Department of a small Pennsylvania University, and all of which are given ample attention in connection to their relationships with Hank, the 50ish college English professor and current chair of the department who is at the center of this novel and whose antics are a reflection of both his current mid-life crisis and the current budgetary troubles of the coming academic year which may or may not cause him and his friends to lose their jobs. I haven't the foggiest idea how to review this book; sufficing to say you should read it.