Russo’s return to North Bath a satisfying adventure
One of the attractions of a friendly neighborhood bar is that you might run into an old acquaintance who’ll tell you a story so compelling you forget to drink, for a while. Richard Russo’s eight novels have that effect — oh-so-human tales that even a teetotaler can savor.
In “Everybody’s Fool,” there’s a police chief who knows his late wife was unfaithful. He’s found a strange garage-door opener in her car, so he’s going all over his small town aiming it at garages, thinking that if he finds a door that opens, he’ll know whom she was cheating with. And that’s just one of the plot lines in Russo’s return to North Bath, a downtrodden, endearing village in upstate New York. You’ve got grave-robbing, escaping snakes, collapsing buildings, flooding industrial sludge and a love story or two, all of which the author relates with his usual wry humor. And then there’s some deadlyserious violence that keeps the reader guessing what’s going to happen next.
Though Russo won a Pulitzer Prize for “Empire Falls,” most of his fans would consider 1993’s “Nobody’s Fool” their favorite. The main character in that one was Donald “Sully” Sullivan, a ne’er-do-well 60-year-old handyman earning just enough for beer and cigarettes. Through a series of misadventures, he ended up with a bit of prosperity and some extra responsibilities that he’d been dodging all his life.
A minor nemesis in that earlier novel was Doug Raymer, a young, hapless policeman, a Barney Fife with a fully loaded gun. He accidentally discharged his weapon during an encounter with a disorderly Sully, not hurting anyone, but his wild shot narrowly missed an elderly woman in her bathroom. It’s 10 years later in “Everybody’s Fool,” and Raymer has somehow become police chief (the talent pool in North Bath being very shallow). Yet the humiliation from the accidental shooting still haunts him. The city judge at the time remarked, “You know my thoughts on arming morons … You arm one, you have to arm them all. Otherwise it’s not even good sport.”
Raymer has other humiliations to experience in this new novel, especially the mystery of the garagedoor opener. Despite himself, he starts to turn into a good cop as he investigates other matters and discovers he’s a lot smarter than he ever suspected.
Sully has his own problems. At age 70, he probably won’t make it to 71. “‘Your heart could fail at any time,’ the cardiologist admitted. ‘You could die in your sleep.’ This scenario, Sully gathered, was supposed to scare him … but it hadn’t. ‘Wake up dead?’ he said. ‘That doesn’t sound so bad, actually.’”
As Sully gets used to the idea of mortality, he’s dealing with his needy friends, his deranged ex-wife, his grumpy ex-girlfriend and a vicious ex-con who has it in for him. Plus a loyal dog that Sully really, really needs to take to the vet. (Don’t ask.)
Russo describes the struggling blue-collar and white-collar residents of North Bath with not an ounce more sympathy than they deserve. “They needed to believe that luck ruled the world and that theirs was bad and would remain so forever and ever, amen, a credo that let them off the hook and excused them from truly engaging in the present, much less the future.”
But there’s also respect for people who persevere, especially folks like Sully, who have done hard physical labor such as construction all their lives. “What appealed to him, as near as he could tell, was its necessity. … And once completed, it provided satisfaction, and even pleasure, in inverse proportion to the hardship endured. Sheetrocking in weather so cold you couldn’t feel your fingers until you misjudged where they were and hit them with a hammer was hardly fun, but it felt good when you finally came in out of the cold. The long shower afterward, hot as you could stand it, felt better still, and sliding onto a barstool … an hour later. Perfection.”
Though novels and movies shouldn’t be judged by each other, Russo has said that he was very happy with the film version of “Nobody’s Fool.” Paul Newman gave the best performance of his golden years as Sully. The rest of the cast was also worthy, including an unknown young character actor named Philip Seymour Hoffman in the then-minor role of Doug Raymer. Newman is gone, of course, after a long, honored career, and Hoffman after a too short one, done in by his own demons. Russo has said he was halfway through writing this sequel when Hoffman died. Perhaps the actor wouldn’t have wanted to play Raymer again, but Hoffman would have done him justice.
Russo sometimes overplays his hand. There’s a subplot about intrigue among the local college faculty that would have been better off as a separate story. And there’s a cameo appearance by a semivillain from the first novel that feels unnecessary, a loose end that would have been better left untied. Most Russo fans won’t mind a few imperfections — they’ll be grateful to share more time on the barstool with Sully and company.
Do you need to read “Nobody’s Fool” before the sequel? No, but why deny yourself the pleasure of reading them both?