WEBVTT

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Hello, and I will be happy
to be the third person

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to welcome you to this
presentation of the Prose

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Series.

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As Aurelie Sheehan said,
my name is Reina Wagner,

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and I'm an adjunct
faculty member

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of the English department,
and the creative writing

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program with the event.

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And as Aurelie also
mentioned that where

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I've also been a recipient
of my MFA in creative writing

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which means that our esteemed
guest, Richard Russo, and I

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have something in common.

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We're both Wildcats.

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And unfortunately,
for me at least,

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that's where our list
of commonalities ends.

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For a while I am
still, and may forever

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be, an aspiring
writer as evidenced

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by all of his body of
work most particularly

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by his Pulitzer Prize winning
2001 novel, Empire Falls,

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we all know that Richard
Russo is a writer, one who

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has most definitely arrived.

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And he has also had the
talent and the good fortune

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to make his living as a novelist
and screenwriter for some years

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now, and his production
has been prolific.

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The novels include Mohawk,
The Risk Pool, Nobody's Fool,

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Straight Man, and of
course, Empire Falls,

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and his new short story
collection, The Whore's Child.

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His work has also been
well-reviewed and bestselling.

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And while this is
a fortunate turn

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of events for all of
us fans of his work,

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not to mention
Richard Russo, it also

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means that Professor Russo,
PhD, doesn't exist any longer.

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Dr. Russo has left the building.

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But one only has to open the
pages of one of his books

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to realize that Richard Russo
has never stopped teaching us.

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Now, rather than
presenting a lecture

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before a group of lit students
at Colby College in Maine,

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Richard Russo carries
us all along with him

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in a lesson featuring
his honest characters,

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his sharp eye for the
personality and place,

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and a perspective
that never forgets

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how all people carry their
history with them everywhere

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they walk.

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Richard Russo has been called
a champion for the common man,

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for blue collar workers,
and an author who

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brings back to
life towns that had

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their heyday five decades ago.

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His attraction to these
characters and these settings

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is as natural as any writer's
inclination to the familiar.

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"Writing about blue
collar folks is

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something I've been doing
right from the start."

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He said once in a
recent interview.

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"It's a world I
know pretty well,

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and its people seem worth
talking about to me.

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I like most of these
folks quite a bit."

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For an example, of how
much he likes these folks,

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look at this passage
from Empire Falls,

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one that describes the working
psychology of Sunday afternoon

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sports fans in terms that rings
true with both his character's

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point of view and his
reader's sensibility.

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In this section the
sports bar owner Bea

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justifies not buying
a big screen TV,

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despite the insistence
of her patrons

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that because of
unequal game viewing

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vantage points along bar, this
is just what she needs to do.

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He writes, "What her customers
didn't seem to understand

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was that deep down, they
enjoyed being bunched up.

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Just as they enjoyed the
jostling and the spilled beer

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and the stolen bar
stools, they enjoyed

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holding their urine
as long as they could,

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and then asking the
guy on the next stool

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to save theirs
until they got back,

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knowing full well he wouldn't
even after he promised to.

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But there wasn't a damn
thing wrong with imbalance.

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What was life but
good bar stools

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and bad ones, good
fortune and bad,

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shifting from Sunday to
Sunday, year to year,

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like the fortunes of the
New England Patriots.

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There was no such thing
as continual good fortune,

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or misfortune, except
for the Red Sox,

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whose curse is eternal."

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The affection Richard Russo
has for these characters,

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who complain out loud
about the television

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in order to drown out the
litany of problems that

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scream inside their heads, their
livelihoods, their children's

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futures, the slow but
steady disappearance

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of passion from their marriages,
that affection comes across

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with each sentence,
each plot twists,

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each historical revelation.

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And I think we can feel
that affection on the page

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because Richard "Rick"
Russo, feels it in life.

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His novels are rooted in truth.

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As he told the interviewer
from USA Today,

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after that newspaper
selected Empire

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Falls as the inaugural
book for his book club

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earlier this year, everything
in his books is true, "Yes,

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all of it."

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Russo said, "but some
of it I made up."

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That truth, made
up or not, enables

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Russo to use stock characters,
the bitter professor

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in Straight Man,
the Empire Grill's

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sexy, sassy, past
her prime waitress.

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The solemn high school owner
who provides Empire Falls

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with its startling climax.

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In a lesser writer's hand,
these people would be nothing

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but stereotypes.

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Richard Russo reminds
us that stereotypes

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became that way
because they truly

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occurred so often in light.

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So as you can see, the
lessons keep coming,

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Professor Russo or not.

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I'm sure you join me
in hoping that Richard

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Russo, fellow Wildcat, keeps
gracing us with his wisdom,

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whether it's from
behind a lectern,

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or with no more
teaching paraphernalia

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than his writers pen.

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And likewise, I'm sure you
join me in welcoming back

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to this lectern, Richard Russo.