RfP Wednesday -- It's Tuesday. So Sue Me.

Longtime readers will remember a feature called "Reading for Pleasure Wednesdays," initiated last summer by Dr. Crazy. I kept it up for a while (longer than Dr. Crazy!) but it petered out when the school year started. Now that it's spring break, I've had time not only to finish a book, but to actually sit down and recommend it.

The book in question is Straight Man, by Richard Russo. This is definitely recommended reading for the academic community. (I have a feeling that I heard about it on an academic blog -- perhaps Dean Dad?) It's definitely a book that will make you feel good about your current academic situation -- at least it's not as bad as the English Department at West Central Pennsylvania University.

Russo's hero, William Henry Devereaux, Jr., is a charmingly funny "loose cannon," temporarily chair of the most dysfunctional department of the least prestigious university in the system. When things look bad, he just can't resist the urge to make them a little worse. He is philosophical about his role in an academic dead end, although he longs for much more. He's a master of subtle put downs. He consoles a young colleague with the prediction that the young man will get tenure, and, before he's done, be head of the department. In an aside to the reader, he remarks that if the young man realizes he's been insulted, he shows no sign.

A jacket blurb from E. Annie Proulx suggests that Russo's characters are "as real as we are," but I take exception. Russo's characters are just slight exaggerations of real people. They feel familiar, even as you realize that no one you know is quite that nutty. They are, all of them, multi-dimensional. They feel like real people, not stock characters.

The plot develops nicely. The whole thing takes place in about five days, as a fiscal crisis overtakes the University, leading, as always, to dissention and intrigue. In the middle of it all, Hank Devereaux managages to create a stir by threatening, before a local news crew (in town to cover the routine ground breaking of a new building) to "kill a duck a day" until he gets a budget. In the course of things, he had to deal with a recall vote, his daughter's marital crisis, his father's imminent return, and his own medical misfortune. At the end, there are no real loose ends, but it doesn't feel like Russo has gone out of his way to wrap things up neatly.

On the whole, I enjoyed the book, and I'll be looking for more from this author.

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