Everybody's Fool
A novel
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4.1 • 289 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls returns to North Bath, the Rust Belt town first brought to unforgettable life in Nobody’s Fool. • "Irresistible.... Very funny.... A joy." —The New York Times
Now, ten years later, Doug Raymer has become the chief of police and is tormented by the improbable death of his wife—not to mention his suspicion that he was a failure of a husband. Meanwhile, the irrepressible Sully has come into a small fortune, but is suddenly faced with a VA cardiologist’s estimate that he only has a year or two left to live.
As Sully frantically works to keep the bad news from the important people in his life, we are reunited with his son and grandson . . . with Ruth, the married woman with whom he carried on for years . . . and with the hapless Rub Squeers, who worries that he and Sully aren’t still best friends. Filled with humor, heart, and hard-luck characters you can’t help but love, Everybody’s Fool is a crowning achievement from one of the great storytellers of our time.
Look for Nobody's Fool, available now, and Somebody’s Fool, coming soon.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
With Nobody's Fool, Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo introduced us to the residents of North Bath, who can't seem to shake their second-best status to neighboring Schuyler Springs. In Everybody’s Fool, we’re drawn into the stories of the upstate New York town’s increasingly unhinged police chief, Douglas Raymer, and Donald "Sully" Sullivan, a man facing a diagnosis that gives him two years to live. Both men are embroiled in at least one love triangle, pushing Russo’s novel toward hilarious madness—think runaway cobras, graveyard vandalism, and lightning strikes. This is the kind of comic novel that makes you want to pop a bowl of popcorn and spend the day reading.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When Doug Raymer, chief of police of the forlornly depressed town of North Bath, Maine, falls into an open grave during a funeral service, it is only the first of many farcical and grisly incidents in Russo's shaggy dog story of revenge and redemption. Among the comical set pieces that propel the narrative are a poisonous snakebite, a falling brick wall, and a stigmatalike hand injury. North Bath, as readers of Nobody's Fool will remember, is the home of Sully Sullivan, the hero of the previous book and also a character here. Self-conscious, self-deprecating, and convinced he's everybody's fool, Raymer is obsessed with finding the man his late wife was about to run off with when she fell down the stairs and died. He's convinced that the garage door opener he found in her car will lead him to her lover's home. Meanwhile, he pursues an old feud with Sully; engages in repartee with his clever assistant and her twin brother; and tries to arrest a sociopath whose preferred means of communication are his fists. The remaining circle of ne'er-do-wells, ex-cons, daily drunks, deadbeats, and thieves behave badly enough to keep readers chuckling. The give-and-take of rude but funny dialogue is Russo's trademark, as is his empathy for down-and-outers on the verge of financial calamity. He takes a few false steps, such as giving Raymer a little voice in his head named Dougie, but clever plot twists end the novel on lighthearted note. 250,000-copy announced first printing.
Customer Reviews
A visit with old friends
If you have seen the film made from the previous book in this series (“Nobody’s Fool”) you will immediately associate the characters with the actors who played them. Paul Newman as Sully, Bruce Willis as Carl Roebuck and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Raymer. The film and the book were terrific and when I learned there was a sequel I was delighted to have a chance to return to Bath NY and this cast of appealing misfits stumbling through their lives. My only advice is to read Nobody’s Fool first but I suppose you can read them in any order you like.
Great Stand-Alone
This book was amazing as a stand-alone piece. You don’t need to have read Nobody’s Fool - in fact it’s probably better having not. Loved it as a solo novel!
Everybody's fool
Loved every.single.page.