RTE Guide''s Book of the Year, 2018
Richard Russo''s characters in these four expansive stories bear little similarity to the blue-collar citizens we''re familiar with from many of his novels. In ''Horseman,'' a professor confronts a young plagiarist as well as her own weaknesses as the Thanksgiving holiday looms closer and closer. In ''Intervention,'' a real estate agent facing an ominous medical prognosis finds himself in his father''s shadow while he presses forward - or not. In ''Voice,'' a semi-retired academic is conned by his estranged brother into joining a group tour of the Venice Biennale, fleeing a mortifying incident with a traumatised student back in Massachusetts but encountering further complications in the maze of Venice. And in ''Milton and Marcus,'' a lapsed novelist tries to rekindle his screenwriting career, only to be stymied by the pratfalls of that trade when he''s called to an aging, iconic star''s mountaintop retreat in Wyoming.
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