Everybody's Fool (Reprint) (Paperback) (Richard Russo)

About the Book

"A best-selling and beloved author, at the very top of his game, now returns to North Bath, in upstate New York, and the characters who made Nobody's Fool, his third novel, his first great success. The irresistible Sully, who in the intervening years has come by some unexpected good fortune, is now staring down a VA cardiologist's estimate that he only has a year or two left, and he's busy as hell keeping the news from the most important people in his life: Ruth, the married woman he carried on with for years... the ultra-hapless Rub Squeers, who worries that he and Sully aren't still best friends. Sully's son and grandson, for whom he was mostly an absentee figure. Doug Raymer, now Chief of Police and still obsessing over the identity of the man his wife might have been having an affair with before she died in a freak accident. Bath's mayor, the former academic Gus Moynihan, who also has a pressing wife problems and then there's Carl Roebuck, whose lifelong run of failing upwards might now come to ruin. Everybody's Fool is filled with humor, heart, hard times, and characters who you can't help but love for all their faults. It is classic Russo and a crowning achievement from one of the greatest storytellers of our time"--

Book Synopsis

National Bestseller and a New York Times 2016 Notable Book

In these pages, Richard Russo returns to North Bath, the Rust Belt town first brought to unforgettable life in Nobody's Fool. Now, ten years later, Doug Raymer has become the chief of police and is tormented by the improbable death of his wife--not to mention his suspicion that he was a failure of a husband. Meanwhile, the irrepressible Sully has come into a small fortune, but is suddenly faced with a VA cardiologist's estimate that he only has a year or two left to live.

As Sully frantically works to keep the bad news from the important people in his life, we are reunited with his son and grandson . . . with Ruth, the married woman with whom he carried on for years . . . and with the hapless Rub Squeers, who worries that he and Sully aren't still best friends. Filled with humor, heart, and hard-luck characters you can't help but love, Everybody's Fool is a crowning achievement from one of the great storytellers of our time.

Review Quotes

"A delightful return to form. . . . Irresistible. . . . Very funny. . . . A joy." --The New York Times

"Profound and wise. . . . [Russo is] a writer of great comedy and warmth." --USA Today

"Elegiac but never sentimental. . . . Russo's compassionate heart is open to the sorrows, and yes, the foolishness of this lonely world, but also the humor, friendship and love that abide." --San Francisco Chronicle

"For fans who've missed Sully and the gang, Everybody's Fool is like hopping on the last empty barstool surrounded by old friends." --Entertainment Weekly

"A delight." --The Washington Post

About The Author

Richard Russo is the author of seven previous novels; two collections of stories; and Elsewhere, a memoir. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody's Fool was adapted to film, in a multiple-award-winning HBO miniseries.