Life and Art
Essays
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4.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A marvelous new essay collection from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Somebody's Fool and The Destiny Thief
Life and Art—these are the twin subjects considered in Richard Russo’s twelve masterful new essays—how they inform each other and how the stories we tell ourselves about both shape our understanding of the world around us.
In “The Lives of Others,” he reflects on the implacable fact that writers use people, insisting that what matters, in the end, is how and for what purpose. How do you bridge the gap between what you know and what you don’t, and sometimes can’t, know? Why tell a story in the first place? What we don’t understand, Russo opines, is in fact the very thing that beckons to us. In “Stiff Neck,” he writes of the exasperating fault lines exposed within his own family as his wife’s sister and her husband—proudly unvaccinated—develop COVID. In “Triage,” he details with heartbreaking vividness the terror of seeing his seven-year-old grandson in critical condition. And in “Ghosts,” he revisits Gloversville, the town that gave rise to the now-legendary fictional town of North Bath, and confronts the specter of its richly populated past and its ghostly present.
Sharp, tender, extraordinarily intimate reflections on work, culture, love, and family from one of the great writers of our time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
These stimulating pieces from Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Russo (Somebody's Fool) explore his artistic process and upbringing in a blue-collar town in upstate New York. In "The Lives of Others," Russo sensitively probes the ethics of writing fiction from the perspective of characters who belong to different identity groups than the author, suggesting that while such novelists as Rebecca Makkai have done so successfully, writers should be careful not to succumb to opportunism and to take seriously the moral responsibility of writing about marginalized groups. "From Lucky Jim to Lucky Hank" provides an insider's view of the book to screen adaptation process, recounting how Russo modeled his 1997 novel, Straight Man, on Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim, and how The Office showrunner Paul Lieberstein updated Russo's portrayal of middle-aged ennui for the 2023 series Lucky Hank. Russo's skill as a storyteller is on full display throughout, but the impact of the autobiographical essays is dulled by repetition. For instance, "Marriage Story" and "What We Really Want from Stories" read like successive drafts of the same piece, both using Russo's mother's oversimplified explanation of her reasons for separating from his father as a springboard to investigate the contradictory power of stories to alternatively reveal or dissemble. Still, Russo's fans will savor this.
