Fiction/Literature
STRAIGHT MAN
William Henry Devereaux, Jr., is the reluctant chair of the English department at an underfunded college in the Pennsylvania rust belt. In the course of a week, Devereaux will have his nose mangled by an angry colleague, imagine his wife is having an affair with the dean, wonder if an adjunct is trying to seduce him with peach pits, and threaten to execute a goose on local television. At the same time, he must come to terms with the dereliction of his youthful promise and the ominous failure of certain vital body functions. In short, Straight Man is classic Russo—side-splitting, true-to-life, and impossible to put down.
Fiction/Literature
THAT OLD CAPE MAGIC
It’s a perfectly lovely wedding weekend on the Cape, but for Griffin, the middle-aged father of the bride, it marks the beginning of his descent into a failed marriage, a confrontation with his parents’ deaths, and the realization that his life does not measure up to the life he thought he wanted. With moments of great comedy alternating with ones of rueful understanding, That Old Cape Magic is unlike anything Richard Russo has ever written.
Fiction/Literature
THE WHORE’S CHILD
To this irresistible debut collection of short stories, Richard Russo brings the same bittersweet wit, deep knowledge of human nature, and spellbinding narrative gifts that distinguish his best-selling novels. A cynical Hollywood moviemaker confronts his dead wife’s lover and abruptly realizes the depth of his own passion. As his parents’ marriage disintegrates, a precocious fifth-grader distracts himself with meditations on baseball, spaghetti, and his place in the universe. And in the title story, an elderly nun enters a college creative writing class and plays havoc with its tidy notions of fact and fiction.
Fiction/Short Stories
VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES
Available at your local bookstore, or visit
www.randomhouse.com
FIRST VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES EDITION, JULY 2003
Copyright © 2002 by Richard Russo
“The Whore’s Child” was originally published in Harper’s . “Monhegan
Light” was originally published in Esquire . “The Farther You Go”
was originally published in Shenandoah. “Joy Ride” was originally
published in Meridian. “Poison” was originally published in Kiosk.
“Buoyancy” was originally published in High Infidelity, ed. John
McNally (William Morrow, 1997).
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Contemporaries and
colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Russo, Richard, [date]
The whore’s child and other stories / Richard Russo.
p. cm.
I. Title.
PS3568.U812 W48 2002
813’.54—dc21 2002019023
www.vintagebooks.com
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-42962-9
v3.0_r1
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