Hello.

Welcome to another edition of Inside the Cover.

I am your host Ted Ayres and I again want to thank you for watching and supporting Inside the Cover.

Your interest in ou program is greatly appreciated and we never take lightly our responsibilities to bring you an entertaining and insightful program each and every week.

Over the years we have often featured writers who have become personal favorites of mine.

Erik Larson, Rex Stout, Jane Smiley, and Dave McCullough, to name just a few.

Well, tonight I want to honor, salute and talk about another writer from my personal Authors Hall of Fame.

That writer is Richard Russo.

Come alon as we now go inside the cover.

Richard Russo is an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and teacher.

In 2002 he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his novel, Empire Falls.

He was born in Johnstown, New York, on July 15, 1949.

He attended the University of Arizona from 1967 to 1979, earning a bachelor's degree a master of fine arts degree and a PhD.

Much of Russo' work is semi-autobiographical, drawing on his lif from his upbringing in upstate New York to his time teaching literature at Colby College, where he retired in 1996 to pursue writing full time.

Interestingly, Russo was on the faculty at Southern Illinois University when his first novel Mohawk, was published in 1986.

Don Beggs, president emeritus of WSU, was at SIU at the same time.

As you can see, I have read most of Russo's works and I have thoroughly enjoyed all of them.

I am also the proud owner of two signed first editions of his work.

As I previously have stated on Inside the Cover, Russo's book, Straight Man, is my most favorite satire of academic life.

His protagonist, William Henry Devereaux Jr, is the reluctant chairman of the English Department of a badly underfunded colleg in the Pennsylvania Rust Belt.

Devereauxs reluctance is partly rooted in his character-- He is a born anarchist-- and partly in the fact that his department is more savagely divided than the Balkans.

It is a book that made me laugh out loud, which is a high watermark for me.

As previously noted, Russo's memoir, Elsewhere was published in 2012.

In the Prologue, Russo writes: “What follows in this memoir-- I don't know what else to call it-- is a story of intersections of place and time, of private and public, of linked destinies and flawed devotion.

It's more my mother's story than mine, but it's mine, too, because until just a few years ago, she was seldom absent from my life.” Russo's latest book is Somebody's Fool which came out earlier in 2023.

This book is the final installment in a trilogy that maps the life and legacy of one “Sully” Sullivan, an everyman with a passel of troubles and a knack for making them worse.

Set over three days in February 2010, the novel opens with a bleak snapshot.

The recession has wreaked havoc on local businesses and families.

Sully has been gone a decade, felled by a heart attack.

But his survivors, his professor son Peter, his paramour Ruth, and her volatile daughter and granddaughter, his awkward friend Rub, conjure the ghost of the figure they adored and resented.

The characters are odd, but nevertheless endearing.

Their lives are intertwined and involved, and the story is a bit complicated.

However, as Kirkus Reviews noted, “Russo's version of a good old fashioned comic novel is the gold standard full of heart and dexterous storytelling.” Tonight, we have featured the Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Russo.

I find him to be an engaging, witty and talented writer and I highly recommend his work.

Thanks for watching.

I look forward to our next conversation here on Inside the Cover.

Good night.