Library's review
Richard Russo is one of those authors I've been meaning to read for a long time but somehow kept missing along the way. Last December, I bought my copy of Empire Falls at the annual LibraryThing meetup in Joplin, Mo., and then promptly forgot all about it in the rush of reading all the books I had
Russo's writing style is very appealing to me. It is funny and self-deprecating, but also tender and kind even as the point of view rotates amongst several different characters. He has a way of slipping in great truths about life in ways that seem natural to the conversation or the situation. And there are plenty of opportunities for that, as we spend time with Miles Roby, who grew up in Empire Falls and failed to fulfill his mother's single quest, to make sure that he got a college education and never returned to the small, dying mill town again. Now he's raising his daughter Tick, going through a divorce from Tick's mother, and trying to keep the Empire Grill alive even as its owner, the formidable Francine Whiting, does her best to keep him teetering on the brink of solvency.
The town of Empire Falls itself is a character, a small town whose brief burst of prosperity died along with the textile mills and the shirt factory, and is now limping into a dismal and uncertain future. No one in this book is successful, really. Miles and his family are insecure financially and emotionally; the town cop is on the take, the high school is the kind of festering cesspool of insecurity, meanness and unhappiness that only a high school can be, and even rich Mrs. Whiting must cope with a crippled daughter and a seemingly satanic cat. Terrible things happen, and there is no guaranteed happily-ever-after for anyone, but I found the ending satisfying in its own way, for it seemed to offer a glimmer of hope to Miles and Tick and the rest of the town. Of course, glimmers of hope can be snuffed out in an instant, so perhaps it's best that Russo draws the curtain before the disillusionment arrives.
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put on hold from the library. It wasn't until Mamie mentioned in her thread that she was planning to read it for Mark's American Author Challenge this month that I was inspired to pull it out and give it a read, and I'm so glad I did.Russo's writing style is very appealing to me. It is funny and self-deprecating, but also tender and kind even as the point of view rotates amongst several different characters. He has a way of slipping in great truths about life in ways that seem natural to the conversation or the situation. And there are plenty of opportunities for that, as we spend time with Miles Roby, who grew up in Empire Falls and failed to fulfill his mother's single quest, to make sure that he got a college education and never returned to the small, dying mill town again. Now he's raising his daughter Tick, going through a divorce from Tick's mother, and trying to keep the Empire Grill alive even as its owner, the formidable Francine Whiting, does her best to keep him teetering on the brink of solvency.
The town of Empire Falls itself is a character, a small town whose brief burst of prosperity died along with the textile mills and the shirt factory, and is now limping into a dismal and uncertain future. No one in this book is successful, really. Miles and his family are insecure financially and emotionally; the town cop is on the take, the high school is the kind of festering cesspool of insecurity, meanness and unhappiness that only a high school can be, and even rich Mrs. Whiting must cope with a crippled daughter and a seemingly satanic cat. Terrible things happen, and there is no guaranteed happily-ever-after for anyone, but I found the ending satisfying in its own way, for it seemed to offer a glimmer of hope to Miles and Tick and the rest of the town. Of course, glimmers of hope can be snuffed out in an instant, so perhaps it's best that Russo draws the curtain before the disillusionment arrives.
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Description
Miles Roby has been slinging burgers at the Empire Grill for 20 years, a job that cost him his college education and much of his self-respect. What keeps him there? It could be his bright, sensitive daughter Tick, who needs all his help surviving the local high school. Or maybe it's Janine, Miles' soon-to-be ex-wife, who's taken up with a noxiously vain health-club proprietor. Or perhaps it's the imperious Francine Whiting, who owns everything in town-and seems to believe that "everything" includes Miles himself. In Empire Falls Richard Russo delves deep into the blue-collar heart of America ...
Media reviews
Russo's command of his story is unerring, but his manner is so unassuming that his mastery is easy to miss. He satisfies every expectation without lapsing into predictability, and the last section of the book explodes with surprises that also seem, in retrospect, like inevitabilities. As the pace
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quickens and the disparate threads of the narrative draw tighter, you find yourself torn between the desire to rush ahead and the impulse to slow down.
Empire Falls, situated at a fictitious and unlovely bend of the Knox River, is the kind of place tourists from Boston or New York speed through en route to the mini-Martha's Vineyards of the Maine coast, perhaps stopping for lunch at a place like the Empire Grill and eavesdropping on the taciturn, wisecracking regulars. By the end of this novel, you'll know the town's geography like a native, and its tattered landmarks -- the Empire Grill, the old Whiting shirt factory, the architectural folly C. B. Whiting built across the river -- will be as vivid and as charged with metaphor as Salem's house of seven gables or the mansions of East Egg. You will also have had the good fortune to tour this unremarkable geography in the company of an amiable, witty raconteur who knows all the gossip and the local history as well as some pretty good jokes. Only after you've bought him a beer, shaken his hand and said goodbye will it occur to you that he's also one of the best novelists around. Show Less
Russo's command of his story is unerring, but his manner is so unassuming that his mastery is easy to miss. He satisfies every expectation without lapsing into predictability, and the last section of the book explodes with surprises that also seem, in retrospect, like inevitabilities. As the pace
Show More
quickens and the disparate threads of the narrative draw tighter, you find yourself torn between the desire to rush ahead and the impulse to slow down. Show Less
Awards
Pulitzer Prize (Winner — Fiction — 2002)
Ambassador Book Award (Winner — Fiction — 2002)
Indies Choice Book Award (Honor Book — Adult Fiction — 2002)
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Books (Fiction — 2001)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2001 (1e édition originale américaine)
2002-09-04 (1e traduction et édition française, Quai Voltaire)