SOURCE: Curwen, Thomas. “Just Joking.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (21 September 1997): 8.

In the following review, Curwen praises Straight Man as “a thoroughly irreverent, masterful satire of American life, circa 1997.”

Just shy of his 50th birthday, William Henry Devereaux Jr., the wise-cracking interim head of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University, is about to realize that he isn't cut out for academic life. It's only taken 20 years, but what fun would an epiphany like this be if it didn't slam like a ton of bricks through the years he's lost trying to deny it?

It's April, the cruelest month, and this particular week isn't going to get any easier. On the home front, Devereaux's wife is about to head off to Philly to interview for a new job, leaving him with their white German shepherd and a kidney stone that feels like the Rock of Gibraltar. His...