Sumptuous, spirited ... There are scattered potholes in Russo’s plot, which he patches with back story ... Some chapters feel burdened with detail, and a few flashbacks are confusing, with scenes planted uneasily within scenes. And yet these characters’ interlocking fates move confidently toward resolution ... In Russo’s hands these intentions — and the expectations and forgiveness of others — are fine brushes and a palette. He paints a shining fresco of a working-class community, warts and all.
This is optimism in print. Russo has become our national priest of masculine despair and redemption. The gruff grace that he traffics in might seem sentimental next to the merciless interrogation of John Updike’s Rabbit series or the philosophical musings of Richard Ford’s novels about Frank Bascombe. But Russo understands the appeal, even the necessity, of those absurd affections that exceed all reason and make the travails of human life endurable ... If you haven’t read the previous two novels, you’re likely to feel as though you’re tagging along to your spouse’s college reunion. In trilogies, as in life, you had to be there ... Russo’s bequest to us ... The list of folks we need to look after is never finished; if we’re living right, it keeps growing.
Like its predecessors, this book lands as an authentic, ambivalent ode to America's small towns — where, like everywhere else, progress occurs at a fitful pace.
Fans of the previous two novels will enjoy reconnecting with familiar characters ... While Sully is missed as a physical presence in the book, he’s never far from anyone’s mind ... The Fool books nail that small town vibe, where everybody thinks they know everybody’s else’s business, and more importantly, cares about what happens to their neighbors. If it all feels a little quaint in America circa 2023, that’s part of the charm.
At 74, Russo is still writing terrific comic-realist novels, even if they have grown shaggier and less focused over time ... Russo is...interested in the reader ... Russo, too, has slackened as a writer ... Almost all great fiction has a starveling voracity: to see, to experience, to understand. In these sequels to sequels, by contrast, there’s an uneasy, fattened indolence. The moment has stopped being theirs—and while Russo, at least, has tried to move into the new one, [he doesn't] seem hungry enough to set out with new characters in exploration of something radical.
Russo’s beguiling art is the mastery of cloaking complex human emotions and conflicts in surprisingly simple guises, and he brings depths of pathos and wisdom to this Everyman microcosm by challenging its citizens in unlikely ways, only to have them emerge whole and even heroic. There have never been fools in Russo’s world, just lovely, relatable people navigating foolish situations.
Wise and witty ... Russo gets a slow start, laying on a bit too much backstory at the outset, but the novel soon picks up speed, delivering the generous humor, keen ear for dialogue, and deep appreciation for humanity’s foibles that have endeared the author to his readers for decades. Though Sully is gone, his world is alive and well.
