Straight Man - Richard Russo

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780375701900-4: By the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel Empire Falls, Straight Man is the story of William Henry Devereaux, Jr., the son of two academics, and the current chair of the English Department at a fictional state university facing severe budget cuts. While the professors in his department fight amongst themselves to overthrow Devereaux as chair, decide who should make tenure and who shouldn't be named as the new chair, Devereaux sits back and laughs at it all. In general I tend to like books in university settings (Jane Smiley's Moo, for example), and this one is written with incredible humor that I found myself laughing out loud on several occasions. At times Russo is a bit too clever - and then over does the joke by telling it several times in one chapter. The plot twists and turns in the book are based on the principle of Occam's Razor - the idea that, "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one" - I like this idea, but again Russo throws it in the reader's face at every possible opportunity and the idea becomes old. But, other than that occasional annoyance (and the irritating character of Devereaux's self-centered and oblivious mother), I found this book hilarious - I'd recommend it to anyone with a relatively cynical outlook on life, who doesn't care to take anything too seriously.