Mark Bramhall’s gorgeous narration of this deeply satisfying novel makes me wonder what it would be like for a great symphonic conductor to play all the instruments himself. Bramhall is superbly skilled and has a beautiful voice with amazing range, but what astonishes here is his humanity, not to mention sense of humor, as he brings Russo’s entire town of North Bath, New York, to madcap life. Russo has never been better than in this virtuoso revisit to the scene of his earlier book NOBODY’S FOOL—this time starring the gormless police chief, Douglas Raymer. The plot builds, slowly at first, over two action-packed days until all the storylines pay off like the best and funniest fireworks show ever. Watch out for the escaped cobra. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

4/22/2016
If this book's title looks a little familiar to you, it's probably because it's the sequel to the 1993 smash hit Nobody's Fool. The residents of the blink-and-you-miss-it town of North Bath, New York are back at it again with their haphazard antics. Unlike the first novel, Everybody's Fool features well-meaning malcontent Sully Sullivan as a side character instead of the main event. This time around, it's earnest Chief of Police Doug Raymer who's the star of the show. Read More

…delightful…North Bath, N.Y., a fictitious upstate town [is]…a town where dishonesty abounds, everyone misapprehends everyone else and half the citizens are half-crazy. It's a great place for a reader to visit, and it seems to be Mr. Russo's spiritual home…Both Bath and Everybody's Fool are funny—very funny…Mr. Russo's people…sideswipe, wisecrack, sneak, scheme and talk to figments of their imaginations. It's a joy to spend time with any of them, two-legged or four.

…in both [Nobody's Fool and Everybody's Fool], the humor is…genial, and it works in service of the characters. Sully in particular emerges as one of the most credible and engaging heroes in recent American fiction…Taken together, at over 1,000 pages, the two Fool books represent an enormous achievement, creating a world as richly detailed as the one we step into each day of our lives. Bath is real, Sully is real, and so is Hattie's and the White Horse Tavern and Miss Peoples's house on Main, and I can only hope we haven't seen the last of them. I'd love to see what Sully's going to be up to at 80.

03/07/2016
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. (May)

New York Times Notable Book of the Year

“A delightful return to form.... Irresistible.... Very funny.... A joy.” —The New York Times

“Profound and wise.... [Russo is] a writer of great comedy and warmth.” —USA Today

“Elegiac but never sentimental.... Russo’s compassionate heart is open to the sorrows, and yes, the foolishness of this lonely world, but also the humor, friendship and love that abide.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“For fans who’ve missed Sully and the gang, Everybody’s Fool is like hopping on the last empty barstool surrounded by old friends.” —Entertainment Weekly

“A delight.” —The Washington Post

★ 05/15/2016
A new novel from Pulitzer Prize winner Russo is always cause for celebration, even more so when it returns readers to North Bath, NY, where Sully Sullivan (Nobody's Fool) and his cronies still inhabit the same bar stools. Ten years on, Sully's circumstances have changed considerably. Landlady Miss Beryl died, willing her home to Sully, while he and his estranged son have forged a tentative peace. He's still harassing his old buddy Rub and has drummed up sympathy for the contractor Carl Roebuck, who's struggling with the aftereffects of prostate cancer. The action turns to police chief Doug Raymer, a painfully insecure man burning with anger and grief at the betrayal and sudden death of his wife, Becka. Does everybody in town believe Raymer is the biggest fool going? Only his worldly wise office assistant, Charice, can talk him down off the ledge. Loneliness and missed connections loom large in Russo's work, but he tempers tear-inducing sentiment with laugh-out-loud moments. VERDICT Known for his keen sense of place, the blue-collar mill towns of the Northeast, Russo avoids caricature with writing that reflects his deep affection for the quotidian and for the best and worst that's found in every human heart. [See Prepub Alert, 2/21/16.]—Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

★ 2016-02-17
A sequel to the great Nobody's Fool (1993) checks in on the residents of poor old North Bath, New York, 10 years later. In his breakout third novel, Russo (Elsewhere, 2012, etc.) introduced a beat-up cast of variously broke, overweight, senile, adulterous, dissolute, and philosophical citizens of a ruined resort town, living out their luckless lives between a bar known as the Horse and a diner called Hattie's Lunch. Cock of the walk was Sully, the gruff but softhearted practical joker/construction worker played by Paul Newman in the movie. Now past 70, Sully is back with a nest egg (his trifecta came in twice; his landlady left him her house), serious health problems, and a dog named Rub. Since his best friend is a mentally challenged dwarf also named Rub, this causes confusion. Wisely, Russo moves Sully off center stage and features one of his nemeses from the first book, a pathetic police officer named Douglas Raymer (Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film). Raymer is now the chief of police, and the novel follows him and other characters through an action-packed two-day period that includes a funeral, a building collapse, an escaped cobra, a grave robbery, multiple lightning strikes, assaults, and auto thefts, strung together with the page-turning revelations about the characters' private lives Russo does so well. Now it's the 1990s, so the characters' weaknesses include hoarding, OCD, depression, sex addiction/impotence, and a mild case of multiple personality disorder. Chief Raymer is tormented by his beautiful wife's horrible death, by a sophisticated colleague from the yuppie town next door, and by the malaprop motto he accidentally had printed on his campaign cards: "We're Not Happy Until You're Not Happy." Who is this Douglas Raymer, his English teacher used to write on his papers, and it will take a whole lot of hell breaking loose for him to find the answer. For maximum pleasure, read Nobody's Fool first. Russo hits his trademark trifecta: satisfying, hilarious, and painlessly profound.