Join our host Chris Stacey and fellow Columbia alumni as the book club discusses Somebody's Fool; a selection from our book club member Michael Shapiro.

Set over three days in February 2010, the novel opens with a bleak snapshot: The recession has wreaked havoc on local businesses and families. Sully’s been gone a decade, felled by a heart attack, but his survivors — his professor son, Peter; his paramour, Ruth, and her volatile daughter and granddaughter; his awkward friend,  Rub — conjure the ghost of the figure they adored and resented. Russo reprises the cast from “Nobody’s Fool” (1993) and “Everybody’s Fool” (2016), framing their foibles as social comedy in the mode of Charles Portis or Charles Dickens. (There’s an allusion to “Great Expectations.”) As with both authors, tumult brews beneath sunny surfaces. Russo paints a shining fresco of a working-class community, warts and all, a 30-year project come to fruition in this last, best book. – Hamilton Cain, New York Times, July 23, 2023

Date: Wednesday, October 25

Time: 6:30PM Central, 7:30PM Eastern, 4:30PM Pacific

Location: Zoom Videoconference

Cost: Free