Reading Order
Straight Man Reading Order
Straight Man (1997) by Richard Russo is his most purely comic novel — the story of Hank Devereaux, the acting chairman of the English department at a small, underfunded Pennsylvania university who is having a spectacularly bad week. The novel covers about a week in Hank's life during which he accidentally injures a journalist with a staple, takes a goose hostage and threatens to kill it on local television if the budget isn't settled, gets a painful kidney stone, is investigated by the administration, and tries to figure out who is sleeping with whom in the department while navigating his own marriage to his practical, long-suffering wife Lily. Straight Man is an academic comedy — a genre with a long tradition in British and American fiction — but it is specifically set in a regional, underfunded university rather than the Oxbridge or Ivy League settings of most academic fiction, and this specific setting gives the comedy its particular texture: these are people in jobs that are less prestigious than they expected, doing politics whose stakes are low, in a world that is faintly ridiculous but is still the world they have. Russo has said the novel draws on his own experience teaching at small universities, and the specificity shows.
Where to start
Straight Man — any Vintage paperback. The most purely comic of Russo's novels and the most immediately funny. Empire Falls (2001) and Nobody's Fool (1993) are the companions in his small-town fiction.
Complete Straight Man Book List
- 1Buy
Straight Man
Richard Russo·1997·The novel — Hank Devereaux's catastrophic week as acting English department chair; the goose hostage, the kidney stone, the budget crisis, the department politics; Russo's most purely comic novel and one of the great academic comedies. - 2Buy
Empire Falls
Richard Russo·2001·Russo's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel — the companion in his small-town fiction; where Straight Man is academic comedy, Empire Falls is the full expression of his serious ambition in the dying mill-town mode. - 3Buy
Nobody's Fool
Richard Russo·1993·Russo's great working-class comic novel — the companion in his comedy; Sully Sullivan's North Bath is the small-town equivalent of Hank's academic world, both places where the comedy comes from the gap between self-image and reality. - 4Buy
Bridge of Sighs
Richard Russo·2007·Russo's most meditative novel — the companion in his serious work; Bridge of Sighs shows what Russo can do when the comedy is reduced and the long view taken. - 5Buy
Lucky Jim
Kingsley Amis·1954·Amis's British academic comedy — the essential predecessor in the genre; Jim Dixon at the provincial British university is the 1950s British version of Hank Devereaux; Lucky Jim invented the academic comedy and Straight Man is its fullest American descendant. - 6Buy
The Art of Fiction
David Lodge·1992·Lodge's novel about a global academic conference — the companion in the British academic comedy tradition; Morris Zapp and Philip Swallow's careers are the international, more elaborate version of what Russo is doing in the regional American academic world. - 7Buy
The Secret History
Donna Tartt·1992·Tartt's novel about the dark side of a Vermont small college — the companion in American academic fiction; where Straight Man is comic about academic life, The Secret History is Gothic; both use the university setting to examine human nature at close range. - 8Buy
Wonder Boys
Michael Chabon·1995·Chabon's novel about an English professor who can't finish his novel — the companion in academic comedy; Grady Tripp's chaotic weekend is the more literary, drug-addled version of what Hank Devereaux's week represents; the goose and the manuscript are parallel comic images.
Straight Man — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Straight Man about?
Straight Man follows Hank Devereaux, the acting chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University (WCPU), across about a week. Hank is a middle-aged novelist (one celebrated novel, decades ago) who has somehow ended up chairing the department he works in, a job he did not want and is not suited for. The novel follows his week as it spirals: he accidentally injures a local journalist with a staple gun, takes a goose hostage at the local television station and threatens to kill it if the administration doesn't settle the budget, gets a kidney stone that makes everything more urgent, and tries to navigate the department's interpersonal warfare while conducting his own investigation into who is sleeping with whom. His wife Lily is the practical, long-suffering center of sanity in his life.
Is Straight Man based on a real university?
Straight Man is loosely based on Russo's own experience teaching at small regional universities, but WCPU is a composite invention rather than a specific institution. Russo taught at Southern Connecticut State University and the University of Maine at Orono, both of which are regional public universities with some of the characteristics of WCPU — underfunded, somewhat demoralized, with the specific social and professional dynamics of a department that is not at a prestigious institution. The novel is very specific about the academic sociology of a place like WCPU, and academics who work at similar institutions tend to find the comedy particularly acute.
What is the goose scene about?
The goose scene is the novel's most famous set piece: Hank has been badgering the administration to settle the department's budget, and in a moment of frustration, he grabs a university goose (the campus has Canada geese) and appears on local television threatening to kill it on camera if the administration doesn't settle. The scene is both absurd and completely in character — Hank has been pushing against consequences all week, and the goose hostage is the logical endpoint of a man who can't help escalating. The scene also reveals Hank's fundamental benevolence: he is incapable of actually hurting the goose, which everyone who knows him also knows.
How does Straight Man compare to other academic novels?
Straight Man is the finest American academic comedy and one of the best academic novels in either the British or American tradition. It belongs to the genre established by Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim (1954) and extended by David Lodge's campus novels (Changing Places, Small World, Nice Work), and it is distinguished within the genre by its setting in a regional, underfunded American university rather than a prestigious institution. The academic comedy at Oxbridge or the Ivy League has different stakes and different comedy from the academic comedy at WCPU — the latter is funnier and sadder, because these are people in jobs that are less than they expected.
What should I read after Straight Man?
After Straight Man, Empire Falls (2001) and Nobody's Fool (1993) are Russo's essential novels in his small-town mode. For British academic comedy, Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim is the essential predecessor. For American academic comedy, Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys is the nearest contemporary companion. For the darker side of American academic fiction, Donna Tartt's The Secret History is the important contrast.
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