Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

That Old Cape Magic – Richard Russo (2009)

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

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I can’t tell if this is intention or not, and he wrote a few novels and books in between, but the ways that this book feels like a retread (and significantly less good one) of Straight Man, his novel from ten years earlier (and just so happens to be a book I read only a week ago) lessens this book. In some ways, there’s something about this book that’s really appealing. The cover, the lettering in the title, the title itself, all give this book […]

Straight Man – Richard Russo (1997)

Straight Man by Richard Russo

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Just an absolutely earnest and hilarious campus novel about a temporary English department head of a small central Pennsylvania state college (I am thinking Penn State Hazelton on this one). The novel takes place in the various memory of and primarily in the long weekend of William Henry Devereaux as his wife is off to Philadelphia for a job interview. We find out a lot about this weekend over time as we find out more about Hank. He’s the son of a very well-known English […]

A walk down white man memory lane (Bingo – Gateway)

Chances Are by Richard Russo

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I’ve been drawn to reading more diverse authors/stories lately so I feel a bit of guilt for going back to an old favorite, Richard Russo, an older white guy who writes predominately about old white guys, and this book is no different. That said, why should I fault Russo for writing what he presumably knows and creating layered and interesting characters, and why should I fault myself for reading a good book? I’ve liked every book of his that I read and consider his writing […]

My father, unlike so many of the men he served with, knew just what he wanted to do when the war was over.

The Risk Pool by Richard Russo

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CBR12Bingo Pandemic – This is the second novel by the American novelist Richard Russo, and the second of his that I’ve read. On the cover we’re told in a blurb that that reader loved the characters in this novel the way he loved the characters in John Irving’s The World According to Garp, and while I can see that comparison in a way, I feel this is more of a case of Saul Bellow than John Irving, if we’re looking for forbears. The novel takes […]

Three’s Company

Chances Are... by Richard Russo

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Something I read about Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury has always stuck with me. Faulkner said the novel began with an image in his head that he couldn’t get rid of. I don’t know for sure if that’s what happened with Richard Russo and Chances Are…, but if it did, I have a pretty good idea what that image was. On December 1, 1969 the U.S. conducted a draft lottery for the faltering and unpopular Vietnam War. The draft went by birthdate, the earlier […]

Shoulder Shrug – The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers, and Life

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Richard Russo is one of my favorite authors, so when I saw this on the “HOT PICKS” shelf at my library I was intrigued. It was fun to get some insight into his life, inspiration and musings, but I won’t be recommending this as much as I recommend his fiction. I enjoyed the stories on writing and life, in particular where he shared the graduation speech he gave to the graduating class of 2004 of Colby College. As that is also my graduation year that […]



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