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Tag Archives: Richard Russo
“I expect you to beat the odds. That’s my gift to you, in fact, that gift of expectations.”
At the end of this novel, Peter Sullivan tells the hard-scrabble students in his English class that he believes in them and expects them to succeed, even if no one else has ever had faith in them before. What a … Continue reading
Posted in fiction
Tagged Affirming, Contemporary Charles Dickens, humanity and warmth, Richard Russo, Somebody's Fool
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“It’s one thing to know a lot and to have experienced a lot, but it’s quite another to know how you feel about what you’ve observed and lived.”
We can’t assume that all novelists who create likable characters are likable themselves, but I imagine that Richard Russo is. In this collection of essays, he is warm, funny, and self-deprecating – traits that characterize many of the people in … Continue reading
Posted in non-fiction
Tagged Essays on Writing, Pulitzer Prize winner, Richard Russo, The Destiny Thief
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“Wasn’t memory, that bully and oppressor, supposed to become soft and spongy?”
What if you found out that many of your memories were either wrong or incomplete? Maybe you would have the same disconcerted feeling that I had when I first saw the cover of this book. It’s a picture of someone … Continue reading
Posted in fiction
Tagged Changes Are, Pulitzer Prize winner, Richard Russo, shifts in perspective
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“Why couldn’t she be more like his other teachers, who looked at him blankly the following fall when he said hello to them outside Woolworths, having in a matter of months forgotten his existence entirely?”
No contemporary writer is better at convincing the reader that a person with many faults can be a hero than Richard Russo. His mixture of empathy, honesty, warmth and wit made Sully a heroic figure in Nobody’s Fool and makes … Continue reading
Posted in fiction
Tagged English Teacher Beryl Peoples, Everybody's Fool, Richard Russo, Unlikely hero
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