The devastation of Becka's death was complicated for Raymer by finding a note from her saying she was about to leave him for another, unnamed man - an affair Raymer had no clue about before she died.
Ten years later, he's Bath's chief of police he's also still reeling from the accidental death a year before of his wife, Becka.
We see that scene from the point of view of Douglas Raymer, the police officer Sully so satisfyingly punched in Nobody's Fool. The novel opens with a hilarious extended scene at the graveside service of a local judge - which might not sound funny, but Russo is such a gifted comic novelist that it, and far more disastrous scenes to come, crackle with wit. It picks up in the 1990s about a decade after Nobody's Fool ended, back in Bath, which is still not flourishing. As good as Russo was in 1993, he's even better now. I was holding my breath for fear Everybody's Fool wouldn't live up to its predecessor, but I shouldn't have worried.
Those books were all terrific, but Nobody's Fool still had a place in my heart. Russo has waited for 23 years to return to those characters, publishing six other books and winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for Empire Falls in the meantime.
0 kommentar(er)
