andrealiberti

Years before I read Straight Man, I had picked up Richard Russo’s earlier novel Nobody's Fool on a whim (read: movie was coming out) and had encountered something I hadn't before. Up until the point, I had been mostly a genre reader. Nobody's Fool, though, was something different: no one was murdered, no creatures running afoul, and nothing hidden in the shadows. It was just a book about a man who had thoroughly screwed up his life and, now that his son was heading in the same direction, decides to set himself and his son straight. It was moving, touching, challenging in parts, and all around wonderful. It was contemporary fiction. And now I was a contemp lit fan. Flash forward years later, I picked up Straight Man thinking I was in for a similar experience. Instead, I found a book that was so damn funny there were times that I was clutching my side because I was laughing so hard! Straight Man touches some of the same themes of Nobody’s Fool in father/son relationships, marriage, fidelity, but moves into a new area: writing. Straight Man is about a an older man, a writer/former writer, looking back at his life and feeling regret over loosing that brash young writer that he once was. Sometimes reading about writing, about authors, even when fiction, can be angering (when they get it all wrong), or strange and surreal. And sometimes, like in the case of Straight Man, it can give insight: seize the pen while the coals are hot (sorry to horribly mix metaphors). Straight Man is a man looking back on time wasted not seizing. As writers, we can procrastinate. Put off what we have to do. Much like I am doing with this review. Straight Man says don’t. Because you might just blink and fifty years have passed.

2022-11-14 17:14