Product Description

In his slyly funny and moving new novel, the author of The Risk Pool follows the unexpected operation of grace in a deadbeat, upstate New York town--and in the lives of the unluckiest of its citizens. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, and Jessica Tandy. Author reading tour.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53892 in Books
• Published on: 1994-04-12
• Released on: 1994-04-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Set in the economically desperate ex-resort town of North Bath, N.Y., Russo's novel displays his characteristic verbal panache and biting wit.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Sixty-year-old Sully is "nobody's fool," except maybe his own. Out of work (undeclared-income work is what he does, when he can), down to his last few bucks, hampered by an arthritic broken knee, Sully is worried that he's started on a run of bad luck. And he has. The banker son of his octogenarian landlady wants him evicted; Sully's estranged son comes home for Thanksgiving only to have his wife split; Sully's own high-strung ex-wife seems headed for a nervous breakdown; and his longtime lover is blaming him for her daughter's winding up in the hospital with a busted jaw. But Sully's biggest problem is the memory of his own abusive father, a ghost who haunts his every day. As he demonstrated in Mohawk (Random, 1986) and The Risk Pool (Random, 1989), Russo knows the small towns of upstate New York and the people who inhabit them; he writes with humor and compassion. A delight. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/93.
- Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
As one listens to Ron McLarty narrate the story of Sully, a man who has never personally met with good luck, one realizes what enormous stamina it takes to relate an involved novel to an interested audience. Sully is in pain and jobless. Oh, he works, but gets paid under the table because his disability case has not yet come up in court. He deals with his ex-wife, his landlady, his soon to be ex-girlfriend, and his son while suffering his knee pain. And Ron McLarty gets it: the pathos of it and the humor of it. The comic timing and continuous warmth in his delivery of this intricately woven novel allow one to enjoy its humor while appreciating the stark realities of the lives that people it. While Russo won the Pulitzer Prize for EMPIRE FALLS, many people still consider this to be their favorite of his works. J.P. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

I love his writing..

I never want a Richard Russo book to end.
I mark passages in his books to read to others.

Nobody's Fool
This settled it. Richard Russo deserves all the accolades there are to give.

Sully is a guy who hogs bad luck. He takes whatever work he can get (when he can get it), but an arthritic knee and the worker's comp people determine to make that a difficult task. He lives in a small-town that loves him and hates him and loves to hate him and hates to love him.

Typical small town.

Speaking of, Russo's characters are brilliant. They never do or say what you expect them to, but when they do or say that, you know that's exactly what you expected of them. I lived with these people in New York, and I'm going to miss them.

And then there's Russo' wit! I'm not just talking witty dialogue, which there's plenty of. I'm not just talking witty writing, which abounds. Something runs deeper than that. It's the wit of life. The wit that comes from knowing people. Really knowing them. They're everyday people, not outlandish, quirky characters. Everyday. Which means outlandish and quirky, but not because Russo had to try. He didn't have to put in extra trick. He just wrote people.

In the end, you feel content. Content with who Sully is (and his landlady and her son and Sully's best friends and son and...). And really, you feel content with who you are. Somehow, this book made me look at my life and think, you know, I like it. Who cares about such-and-such? This is how it is, and I like that.

Funny then wordy
Russo sure does know how to make me laugh and he does a good job of it several times in this book. Yet, I got bored by several sections as descriptions of characters and their thoughts got overly wordy. I still got some good life lessons from this book. I learned that I need to take more risks in life and things will be ok no matter how bad off you are as long as you have friends.