Ran out of things to read so I humped up the slope to Danielle’s house to claw through his bookshelves.
Grabbed a slim volume of Chomsky and a book by Richard Russo called “Straight Man.”
I chewed through Noam in a couple of hours and then turned to Russo.
From the opening page I could not put this book down. 400 pages and I finished it the next night. An absolutely stunning work of brilliant dark humor, insight, honesty, irony…the structure of the plot is as beautiful and solid as the construction of every sentence. The novel has more quotable quotes than Pulp Fiction x Good Fellas…if it hadn’t been D.’s book, I would have read it with a highlighter in hand and left multiple lines on every single page.
Russo – Straight Man. Do yourself a favor and READ THIS BOOK!
Filed under: Arts, Comedy, Social Commentary, Writing | Tagged: Richard Russo, Straight Man
Gotta agree with you! Precious few books make me laugh out loud — David Sedaris can do it, but I can’t think of many others — and Straight Man combines not only fantastic humor but also compelling characters, believable dialogue, excellent pacing … it’s the whole package.
I’ve foisted it on several friends but I won’t be loaning out my only copy, since I now have one signed by Russo. Go buy your own, folks!