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tamela_jThinking of what to say about this book and realizing it's going to sound like I didn't like it. That is farthest from the truth. It's just that Russo is one of those writers that amaze me so much that I expect so much more from him than most writers will ever be capable of. So, while I had a few issues with the format of the story, still, a mediocre Russo book is better then almost anything out there. The way he tells a story, the characters he fills his pages with and the emotions he evokes are second to none.
The Risk Pool is the story of Ned Hall and of his estranged parents--Sam, an exuberantly shiftless man who has never stopped gambling, whoring, and fighting since he managed to get home from World War II, and Jenny, whose resentment at the husband who refuses to stay or stay away drives her into a catastrophic love affair and mental breakdown. How can Ned resolve the tug between his very different parents? And with a father as terminally irresponsible as Sam (his bad habits have put him at the bottom of his auto insurance risk pool), what kind of man can he become?
First, I'm going to ignore that the little bit in the parenthesis (theirs not mine) was an unnecessary explanation of the title and hardly was the most important aspect of the characters shortfalls, and move right to what I loved about the book. COMING OF AGE! I adore coming of age stories. To me, all of Russo's stories are a bit of coming of age stories, even when (especially when) the characters are in their 30s, 40s and 50s (and beyond). But, because I love coming of ages so much, I get really twitchy when a few things happen. Russo hit my biggest thing that makes me twitch. This is when, 2/3 or farther into the book, they FAST-FORWARD THE CHARACTER into adulthood. When you are with a kid from the age of 10 or younger and you are following pretty closely to his growing up and becoming super invested with his day to day happenings and how they form who he is as an adult, you can't just stop at 14 and then re-introduce them again at 24. I've been 14, I know that there are a LOT of things that happen between 14 and 24 that helped form who I am. The jolt was unsettling for me.
My two favorite ways to handle coming of age are to stay at that one place and time in the protagonist's life--think "To Kill a Mockingbird" or intersperse current day protagonist with their younger self--first example of this to come to mind is Stephen King's novella, "The Body." The first type wouldn't have really worked for "The Risk Pool" because, while I found it jarring, the current life of the protagonist was very important and necessary and I did enjoy it once I got over the twitching. So, that leaves the second way. It could have very easily happened where we get bits and pieces of Ned's adult life, or a sense that the older Ned is narrating the story. I would have loved to see what Russo would have done with telling the story this way. This was only his second novel though, so I'll take it as it is and love his character and keep reading his work. For me though, my favorite book of his (one of my favorite books of all time) is "Straight Man." Seriously a funny and touching novel that I can't even explain how very much I loved it. So, if I've accidentally talked anyone out of reading this book, do yourself a favor and read that one at least. And also Empire Falls. And Nobody's Fool. Okay, and probably all the rest of them.
The Risk Pool is the story of Ned Hall and of his estranged parents--Sam, an exuberantly shiftless man who has never stopped gambling, whoring, and fighting since he managed to get home from World War II, and Jenny, whose resentment at the husband who refuses to stay or stay away drives her into a catastrophic love affair and mental breakdown. How can Ned resolve the tug between his very different parents? And with a father as terminally irresponsible as Sam (his bad habits have put him at the bottom of his auto insurance risk pool), what kind of man can he become?
First, I'm going to ignore that the little bit in the parenthesis (theirs not mine) was an unnecessary explanation of the title and hardly was the most important aspect of the characters shortfalls, and move right to what I loved about the book. COMING OF AGE! I adore coming of age stories. To me, all of Russo's stories are a bit of coming of age stories, even when (especially when) the characters are in their 30s, 40s and 50s (and beyond). But, because I love coming of ages so much, I get really twitchy when a few things happen. Russo hit my biggest thing that makes me twitch. This is when, 2/3 or farther into the book, they FAST-FORWARD THE CHARACTER into adulthood. When you are with a kid from the age of 10 or younger and you are following pretty closely to his growing up and becoming super invested with his day to day happenings and how they form who he is as an adult, you can't just stop at 14 and then re-introduce them again at 24. I've been 14, I know that there are a LOT of things that happen between 14 and 24 that helped form who I am. The jolt was unsettling for me.
My two favorite ways to handle coming of age are to stay at that one place and time in the protagonist's life--think "To Kill a Mockingbird" or intersperse current day protagonist with their younger self--first example of this to come to mind is Stephen King's novella, "The Body." The first type wouldn't have really worked for "The Risk Pool" because, while I found it jarring, the current life of the protagonist was very important and necessary and I did enjoy it once I got over the twitching. So, that leaves the second way. It could have very easily happened where we get bits and pieces of Ned's adult life, or a sense that the older Ned is narrating the story. I would have loved to see what Russo would have done with telling the story this way. This was only his second novel though, so I'll take it as it is and love his character and keep reading his work. For me though, my favorite book of his (one of my favorite books of all time) is "Straight Man." Seriously a funny and touching novel that I can't even explain how very much I loved it. So, if I've accidentally talked anyone out of reading this book, do yourself a favor and read that one at least. And also Empire Falls. And Nobody's Fool. Okay, and probably all the rest of them.
