One of my all time favorites

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	• Nobody's Fool Richard Russo Vintage, 1994 - 560 pages average customer review:based on 81 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

At The Top Of My List

I read a lot and enjoy really good writing and storytelling. I don't think there is a better example of both than this novel. Russo is a great storyteller. And "Nobody's Fool," in my opinion, is his best. The characters are different, rich and savory, unpredictable yet predictable, smart and quick, self destructive, full of life, memorable, laughable, and all become so believable we wish we knew them. The second reason his stories are so darn good is his writing. It is so effortless for the mind to absorb. You don't realize you are reading the story because you are so caught up in seeing it--the words just seem to materialize in your brain as real-life images. Great book. Great story. Even greater characters. I loved it and hated for it to end.

Month's later P.S.: After reading a disappointing novel, I will reward myself by rereading a chapter or two from "Nobody's Fool" at my favorite coffee shop. My copy is now so tattered and worn I am going to have to buy another copy.

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A wonderful novel

Empire Falls has received more kudos, but I think that this is Russo's best novel so far. True, it lacks the firmest of plot structures and tends to meander as it explores an always arresting (if sometimes pitiful or depressing) cast of major and minor characters and seemingly peripheral incidents in the down-on-its luck upstate NY burg of "Bath." But that meandering embodies precisely what is so rewarding. The interactions and dialogue between these tragicomic small-town characters is as sharply written, humorous and on-the-mark as anyone could want. Especially for those of us of a certain age, class background, and social and geographic origin, this novel offers the kind of witty, sad and "enhanced" verisimilitude that modern American literature too often lacks. Russo has produced a marvelous work of fiction here, one that constantly elicits empathy and sympathy by exploring characters that inhabit a reader's mind and emotions long after the last page is read.

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One of my all time favorites

I read this on the beach in Ixtapa. People had to have thought I had lost my mind, as I sometimes laughed so hard I cried. But, of course, the book is so much more than funny - it is a totally rounded book with off-beat, but believable characters.

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.

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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.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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.

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