The Risk Pool

by Richard Russo

Paperback, 1994

Status

Available

Call number

PS3568 .U812 R57 1988

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

LGBTQ Iowa Archives & LIbrary

Publication

Vintage (1994), Edition: Reissue, 496 pages

Description

A wonderfully funny, perceptive novel The Risk Pool is set in Mohawk, New York, where Ned Hall is doing his best to grow up, even though neither of his estranged parents can properly be called adult. His father, Sam, cultivates bad habits so assiduously that he is stuck at the bottom of his auto insurance risk pool. His mother, Jenny, is slowly going crazy from resentment at a husband who refuses either to stay or to stay away. As Ned veers between allegiances to these grossly inadequate role models, Richard Russo gives us a book that overflows with outsized characters and outlandish predicaments and whose vision of family is at once irreverent and unexpectedly moving. In the traditions of Thornton Wilder and Anne Tyler, The Risk Pool was hailed by The New York Times as "...superbly original and maliciously funny. Russo proves himself a master at evoking the sights, feelings, and smells of a town."… (more)

Media reviews

New York Times

So accurate and sustained are Mr. Russo's depictions of lunatic drunk talk and petty pool-hall violence that they become almost surreal, as well as blackly funny.

User reviews

LibraryThing member mhgatti

I love Russo’s books, especially Empire Falls and Nobody’s Fool. Russo’s debut, about a small-time hustler trying to raise his kid the best he can, goes right up there with the other two as my favorites. This year I also read Russo’s Straight Man, about office politics between college

professors. It too was very good - maybe his funniest book - but it was not as good as the Risk Pool.

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LibraryThing member buckjohnson

I've read all of Richard Russo's books, and this is his finest. Russo's characters are nuanced, and he gives an unforgettable depiction of people down on their luck in an upstate New York town that has also seen better days. No writer I've read portrays the father-son dynamic better than Russo, and

that dynamic is epitomized here.

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LibraryThing member nohablo

Risk Pool, Richard Russo. Ned Hall grows older as his mother grows more brittle, his town grows more rusted, and his life goes astray. Part of Philandering Father Sam Hall played by a young, brash Johnny Cash.

Risk Pool rests entirely on the shoulders of its hard-ridden, rust-belt dwelling

characters, grinding along on a relatively anemic plot (Boys becoming men! Men becoming wolves!). But have no fear. Russo’s characters are strong, complicated, and resilient. Why? Because Russo is (a) the messiah, (b) the one author who didn’t dream of boobies all through Freshman Creative Writing Seminar, and (c) seriously, like the Second Coming of Christ Jesus. He has the rare knack for the cadences and rhythmic peculiarities of human dialogue, human interaction, and just plain humans in general. Did I mention that dialogue and zestful character interaction is my Achilles heel? WELL IT IS.

However, Risk Pool is Russo’s second novel, and it's not without fault. The middle occasionally sags in pacing. There are also a few near brushes with Deep Thoughts and Advanced Navel-Gazing, but the worst of it just grazes the plot, and the novel escapes unscathed for the most part. Risk Pool ends graceful, bittersweet, and wryly hilarious. Read it.

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LibraryThing member wengland

Ned Hall growing up in a small New York town is surrounded by flawed family and friends all struggling to get along - such wonderful characterisation - such perceptive comment on the human condition. I was totally mesmerized by this book and the life of Ned - humorous and sad and so true. I have to

read more of Richard Russo.

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LibraryThing member jeffome

I really enjoyed this book, but I may have read it too soon after having read Russo's 'Mohawk' which took place in this same wonderful small forgotten upstate New York town. And that lead me to some occasional recollective confusion mixing up the back stories, but not to any serious detriment.

Beautiful writing about some fascinating and believable characters, and I felt I was right there with Ned throughout the whole book. The book perfectly captures that universal sense of having to deal with the family hand we are dealt without letting them fully determine our own destiny. The father / son relationship Sam and Ned is a memorable one. This is my third Russo book and they all have a unique quality; an aftertaste of hopeful otpimism in spite of the time you have spent with quirky characters in less than ideal circumstances in fairly depressing settings...somehow we feel good as we share the simplicity of their efforts to survive and thrive in spite of what comes their way. I look forward to my next Russo.

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LibraryThing member ljhliesl

A pleasure, as ever. He is so funny. I find his tragicomedy deeply reassuring, even early in his career, even when he repeats himself in later books.

LibraryThing member davevanl

I cannot help but wonder how this story would go in our age of Facebook and Twitter and other technological wizardry. Doe Russo have time to write another? I saw the movie 20 years ago. I think I will watch it again.

LibraryThing member Randall.Hansen

A meandering, coming-of-age story of a young man from Mohawk, NY, an hour or so from Albany. It's a story of his family life, with two parents not ideally suited for each other, and how he is raised (mostly by his mother)... and his searching for a deeper relationship and understanding of his

father, as well asd of life in general. Some beautiful prowse in the novel, but seems just a bit too broad and sweeping without quite enough to keep it going. Time period is mostly 60s and 70s, though it could be practically any time period.

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LibraryThing member JosephKing6602

Great characters with a lot of humor and a lot of humanity. Almost a perfect novel; and just as good as his new books!

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