The Risk Pool [Hardcover]

Richard Russo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 12, 1988

A wonderfully funn and perceptive novel in the traditions of Thornton Wilder and Anne Tyler, 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.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Brilliantly fulfilling the promise of his first novel, Mohawk , Russo sets this richly satisfying narrative in the same blue-collar milieu of that fictional upstate New York town. The narrator, Ned Hall, or "Sam Hall's boy," as he is always identified by his father's pals, recalls his growing-up years in a community whose seasons are identified as "Fourth of July, Mohawk Fair, Eat the Bird and Winter." The unconventional upbringing that contributes to his pessimistic view of life is the result of the ongoing war between his parents. Sam Hall, as feckless, inept and irresponsible a charmer as has ever been conjured to fictional life, abandons his wife and son for the best part of 12 years while he becomes a barfly, petty thief and gambler, a generally disreputable citizen whose status in the lowest depths of the insurance risk pool typifies his harum-scarum existence. He claims adolescent Ned after his mother's nervous breakdown, however, and the two years father and son spend together are the essence of this chronicle of complex parental and filial relationships. Under his father's tutelege Ned learns to lie and cheat, steal and play poolindeed, to remake himself in his father's imageand it is not until two decades later that he realizes he has also learned about the redemptive power of love. Russo writes in a prose style as seductive as spring: the novel has a vigorous pace, sharply witty dialogue and a liberal helping of hilarious scenes. The book's depiction of a community fallen on hard times, its vividly delineated characters, and its sensitive portrayal of a boy bewildered by the conditions of his life and learning to adapt to hardship, neglect and a curious kind of off-hand love all pack an emotional wallop. This is a novel whose intelligence will appeal to discriminating readers, whose chronicling of picaresque misadventures will vastly entertain, and whose compassionate evocation of lower middle-class people struggling to find dignity and happiness will strike home with universal truths. In short, it's as good a novel as we are likely to get this year. BOMC and QPBC alternates.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A story of not-so-successful folk in a decaying town in New York as seen through the eyes of Ned Hall, better known as "Sam's son." Sam was once an average citizen who grew up, married, and went off to fight in World War II but returned a drifter. Leaving his wife and small son at home, he would haunt the bars and pool halls and hobnob with his cronies. Now and then he'd appear from nowhere to take Ned with him. When Ned's mother, Jenny, trips over the edge, Ned goes to live with Sam in a dilapidated loft above the town's one department store and shares his father's roguish life. Ned's 20-year story is filled with wonderfully drawn characters and hilarious adventures but the subtext is one of sadness and near desperation. Highly recommended. Marion Hanscom, SUNY at Binghamton Lib.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 479 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (September 12, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394565274
• ISBN-13: 978-0394565279
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (74 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,381,112 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rick Russo is the author of six previous novels and THE WHORE'S CHILD, a collection of stories. In 2002, he received the Pulitzer Prize for EMPIRE FALLS. He lives with his wife in Camden, Maine, and Boston.
Photo credit Elena Seibert

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Far and away the best book I have read this year. Awsome., August 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Risk Pool (Paperback)

Sam Hall's kid is having to grow up on his own. His mother is a victim of a serious mental illness that renders her totally insubstantial as a parent and/or gaurdian--when she's not in the hospital. Sam Hall is the town vagabond--the kind of guy who lives on the edge, is constantly on the move, so immeresed in his own schemes and shennanigans he's hardly got time for his kid. As a result Sam's boy essentially raises himself and spends his time wondering how his parents ever got this way, while flip flopping form the "care" of one parent to the other.

What makes this book work is that, flawed as the characters are, Russo nevertheless infuses them with the souls of real people. We can bemoan the fact that Sam's a lousy dad, and not that great a person overall, but it's hard to get too worked up about it as the fact is you kind of like the guy. In fact, this novel abounds in characters who are unsavory yet so brilliantly drawn and presented, we feel we know them well, warts and all.

Additionally, Russo is a master at rendering the landscape of the small town, painting a picture that isn't all that attractive yet abounds in appealing context and situations--that is, he makes Mowhawk feel like home feels, regardless of where you grew up.

In the end, what one is left with is a story--a rarity thses days. The novel is funny, sad, insiprational, gross and absorbing--in short, it's a lot like real life. What makes it an extraordinary story is that Russo pulls from it the extrordinary revelations about life, love, loyalty, stupidity, passion and loss that we ought to get out of our own lives but somehow don't.

A truly remarkable book.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A genuine American novel about genuine, realistic people, October 31, 2001

By 

Jeffrey Jotz "You'll know him when you find him" (Rahway, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Risk Pool (Paperback)

Russo's first book, Mohawk, was beautifuly written with a realistic cast of characters, but I found that it was weighed down by a totally uninteresting and uninspiring plot.

The Risk Pool takes the best elements of his first work, sprinkles in an even more colorful assortment of barflies and other sundry and sordid characters, and actually takes us on a sprawling journey of a son and his relationship with his hard-livin', hard-drinkin' father.

Once again, Russo goes through great lengths to make his characters three-dimensional and genuine. He is a master of setting you right down in the bars, fishing holes, trailers, coldwater flats and smoking convertibles and getting you acquainted with Ned Hall and his father, Sam, and all their friends. He has a remarkable talent of making you feel as if you've known these guys for years. Russo also peppers these individuals with some fantastic, realistic dialogue that had me laughing out loud in places (especially when the fellas were discussing and debating the attempted suicide of a local resident).

Russo makes no attempt to hide the many flaws in his characters; even the narrator, Ned, is a compulsive liar who seems to be an emotionally-detached observer and not a participant in his his own relationships with friends and lovers. His father, Sam, despite all of his problems (drinking, gambling, fighting, run-ins with the law, etc.), is made into a believably sympathetic character by Russo, and the author really captures that weird bond between a son and his father regardless of Sam's many, many negatives.

Don't read this book looking for wacky hijinks or any profound insights into life, love or relationships. Thankfully, The Risk Pool never gets sappy or over romanticized like other parent-child novels. The book can be insightful and poetic at times, but that's not the main thrust of The Risk Pool. Take this book at face value like Russo does of his setting, characters and plot, and you'll be sure to love it.

It's one of the best books I've read all year.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Risk Pool- you won't want to put it down, November 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Risk Pool (Paperback)

The Risk Pool is a stellar read. I greatly enjoyed it and would reccomend it to readers of all genres. For those not familiar with Russo's writing style, he cleverly combines the more serious moments in life with a wonderful sense of humor as is seen throughout this novel. There are so many wonderful examples of clever comedy in the book that to mention one would not suffice to say just how good it is. Russo has a strong command of tone in relation to the book's humor. Also, he provides us with many interesting and often unusual family situations- the character of Sam Hall (Ned's father) is most often at the center of such circumstances. Another wonderful facet to Russo's novel is his depiction of the make-believe Central New York town of Mohawk. It is as if the town is real- maybe even Russo's birthplace- that is how vivid and wonderful his imagery of Mohawk is. Nonetheless, such conclusions are for the rest of the reading public to decide- once again, it is truly a wonderful book.