There Are No Fools

One of the best novels by Richard Russo. A witty and touching story about how the sleepy backwater town of North Bath is visited by either grace or a curse - each of its residents chooses for themselves. Donald Sullivan, whom everyone calls Sully, is sixty, and throughout his life he has persistently made nothing but mistakes, even though he is by no means a fool. He is lonely, though surrounded by a crowd of people; his painful knee sometimes hinders his mobility; his friends are such that sometimes he doesn't even need enemies; and problems rain down on Sully one after another, or maybe he finds them himself. He has relied only on himself his entire life, chosen his path, and if that path led to a dead end - then he is a fool himself. A difficult childhood with a despotic father, an ill-fated marriage, failures one after another - this is Sully, yet no one can bring themselves to call him a loser because Sully chooses for himself who he wants to be. And now a new complication: a son has arrived in North Bath, with whom Sully barely knows, and he needs to do something with him - otherwise, the son will repeat Sully's unenviable fate, a man who attracts troubles, both big and small. Late autumn and the coming winter become yet another "stupid streak" in the life of the "not-a-fool" Donald Sullivan, and he will again set out to overcome this streak, once again choosing the path of self-destruction, where he will be equally both cheerful and bitter. "There Are No Fools" is the first book in a trilogy about the town of North Bath, a true encyclopedia of life in American backwaters. Irony, humor, warmth, humanity, and charming characters. This is a novel about how the foolishness of people can sometimes be much smarter and nobler than the actions of the calculating and correct.