Rating: 
Summary: Empire Fall is a town I fell in love with
Review: I had heard such good things about this book and was uncertain if it would be the book for me to get into, but I was wrong. Within 30 pages I was hooked into the lives and feelings of the people in Empire Falls.Miles Roby is a man who has lived his life in Empire Falls. He runs and pretty much owns the Empire Grill. He is going through a divorce with his wife or soon to be ex-wife Janine and he feels like nothing in his life is really real. The Empire Grill is owned by the woman who owns almost everything in Empire Falls and he feels like he can't say anything to her because he is afraid of what might happen. He has a daughter Tick who is going through the joys of high school. She has just broken up with a popular boy named Zack Minty and is having to deal with the fact that when they broke up she lost most of her friends. So she makes friends with Candance who is a inbetween. She is popular but she wants to be, and she trys to make friends with a troubled young man John Voss who appears to be a loner with a lot of problems. Then there is Miles father Max who is an old man who only cares about a few select things in his life. He just wants to get down to the Florida Keys. He will do anything to get there even if means stealing from Miles or hurting those close to him. As Miles looks at his life around Empire Falls he starts to see things that he hadn't seen when he was growing up. His mother Grace is living a life of many different secrets, and Miles can't figure them out as a child and still struggles with them as a full grown man. As this books move along you meet a lot of people who will come into the story and touch your heart. Bea, Janine's mother who is struggling to figure things out in her life. Jimmy Minty who is looking to find faults with others and point them out and at times give Miles a tough time. Father Mark who is the younger priest at St. Cats who is looking to help Miles along his life's journeys. and many more charactors who come into the story. This was such a wonderful book. I felt when I finished it I was leaving behind a town that I had grown to love and feel part of. I am looking forward to reading more Richard Russo's books.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice To Be Home
Review: Come back home and meet all those memorable characters from your town/neighborhood. And get the behind-the-scenes stories on those families that you've always wondered about. What makes them "Tick"?
A good summer read because it pulls you into the town of Empire Falls,and allows you to temporarily live with Miles(the mild-mannered Grill manager) and watch events in this dying milltown unfold.(A great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.)
The ending was a bit sudden. I got to know these characters so well that I was not in that much of a hurry to say goodbe to them.
Worth the time; good book for discussion.
Rating:
Summary: Strong Characters, Shakey Moments
Review: "Empire Falls" is a book that both soars and sputters. For the most part, it is heartfelt, captivating and very, very funny. But then there are those off moments -- when the action rings false or when elaborately drawn designs ultimately amount to a hill of beans. The characters are the book's lifeblood. These are real people -- unfulfilled, hopeful, idiotic, loving, needy, beautiful. You'll laugh with them and at them. Some will make you sad and others angry. And some will leave you scratching your head at the end. Things don't tie up neatly. In fact, by page 400 Russo seems a bit rushed. But "Empire Falls" didn't win the Pulitzer Prize for nothing. It's much more satisfying than hipper critical faves such as "The Corrections" or "...Kavalier & Clay." You won't soon forget the main character's dad, Max ... even if you want to.
Rating: 
Summary: Too many words!
Review: I can't believe that I managed to finish this book. There were way too many words - I kept getting lost in the prose and waiting for something - anything - to happen. I am not sure why I persisted - I guess I kept thinking (hoping)that it would get better. The story could have been quite good - if he hadn't taken pages to say what could have been said in a couple of paragraphs. This was truly a disappointing novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Miles to go
Review: I bought this book because I'd heard it won a Pulitzer and I guess I was expecting The Grapes of Wrath. Miles Roby, the main character of the book, pretty much sleepwalks his way through, and we never do find out if he's gay or not. (Not that there's anything wrong with that--but not knowing was annoying) When his brother, David, let him have it in the decrepit restaurant they own,kind of like Cher in MOONSTRUCK when she slaps Nicholas Cage and shrieks "Snap out of it", I felt like applauding. David immediately is shut down by Charlene, who has the sorta hots for Miles. The "ripped from the headlines" shooting in the trailer at school was a bit much even if it did kind of wake Miles up.
I dunno. Maybe it's me. I'm glad for Russo that he won the award, but somehow I wonder if the standards for this prize have been lowered. Sorry.
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Summary: Russo¿s Empire Falls lives and breathes
Review: It is as much a part of the story as the multitude of characters that grace the pages of this book. A decidedly drawn vision of vanishing America, along with a way of life that is being swallowed up by an economic revival that leaves out the very individuals that ushered it in. Their lack of marketable skills for the up and coming times gives them a sense of uselessness in the era to come. This story is more than the economic downfall of a town, it is the many people that incorporate its value's, meshed together they present a story that positively wraps itself around the reader and pulls them in. Miles, dedicated dad and would-be proprietor of the Empire Grill (if only Mrs. Whiting would see fit to pass), is wracked with guilt over what should have been. Though a bit late, and at the age of 42, this is his coming of age story. He is surrounded by a cast of characters that include Tick his teenage daughter who is wise beyond her years, her mom Janine who has fallen out of love with Miles, and into the arms of "The Silver Fox", and my favorite her grandfather the Machiavellian Max, a mooch with cheese puffs in his beard. The story takes an unexpected dark turn as the plot thickens. If you are lucky enough to listen to the book on tape there is an interview with the author where he speaks of his many sleepless nights while writing this book. As the story unfolded it became "one long night sweat" says Russo. He knew what was coming, and its intensity on a daily basis as he worked on the book grated on his sensibility. This was a gripping piece of fiction from an author that writes not only novels but successful screenplays. He is a force to be reckoned with and an author worth watching. Kelsana 7/17/02
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece of Character Creation and Development
Review: Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Empire Falls" is the kind of book that's just fun to curl up with and enjoy at a slow pace. A novel of "blue-collar life," "Empire Falls" follows everyman Miles Roby, a forty-two-year-old manager at the Empire Grill, the final restaurant holdout in the dying Maine mill town of Empire Falls. The enigmatic Mrs. Whiting owns everything in town, from the Grill to the defunct textile mills whose closing began the slow process of decay that led to the events in the book. Miles is joined by an enormous cast of characters, including his soon-to-be ex-wife, the fitness-obsessed Janine; their artistic but alienated child Tick; Max, Miles' Dionysian father; Jimmy Minty, Miles' friend from school and the main policeman in town; Zack, Minty's son, who isn't over being spurned by Tick in matters of love; and a whole host of other memorable characters. Russo breathes life into these people through lengthy historical flashbacks, usually in the midst of their day-to-day conversations, a technique that lends the book a leisurely pace and prevents what little action there is from taking precedence over the characters and their development. The "action," which is really just an extension of the character development anyway, mostly revolves around events that lead each character to become more complete people. Note: not necessarily BETTER people, but more COMPLETE people. It's been said that an author can never create a convincing person, just a hollow shell. Russo bucks that wisdom in "Empire Falls," managing to create people so subtle and nuanced the reader would swear they are merely doppelgangers for the inhabitants of a real town - Somewhere, USA. For that talent, no doubt, Russo took home his Prize, and deservedly so. Engaging without being pretentious, and grounded without sinking into the muck, "Empire Falls" makes a fantastic read for anyone who enjoys a good, long character-driven book. Other authors, take note: this is how characters should be developed. Final Grade: A
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful and moving
Review: Miles Roby is a middle-aged father in the throes of a divorce from his wife of 20 odd years, stuck running a greasy spoon in Empire Falls, Maine. The once-booming company town is now in serious decline, as the company that sustained it has closed the textile mill and related industrial plants. Yet, the widow of C.B. Whiting and heir to the Company fortunes still owns the town and seemingly everyone in it. This novel is about Miles' predicament. He has promised to run the Empire Grill until Mrs. Whiting dies, at which time it will be his. Or will she out-live him? His soon-to-be ex-wife is engaged to be married to an insufferable egotist who is arrogant without cause. He would love to have his daughter, Tick, come live with him, but there is no privacy in the loft above the grill. Meanwhile, Miles is plagued by a neer-do-well father and the unrequited love of Mrs. Whiting's disabled daughter, Cindy. It seems there is no way out for Miles, even though the Grill has begun to show signs of a resurrection due to the ideas of brother, David. Empire Falls is poignant, funny, literate and moving. It is truly an exceptional novel. The characters are beautifully rendered. Protagonist Miles is all too human as are most of us. Even the "villains" possess redeeming human qualities. The story is filled with twists, turns, flashbacks and insights into the human predicament. This it not a thiller or a page turner. It is a meat and potatoes novel that will stay with you long after you have closed the last page.
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Summary: It's the Characters
Review: I am shocked to read the negative reviews on this novel. This story is character-driven, while the great majority of today's novels seem plot driven or dependent on the shock of incest, poverty, domestic abuse. What's wonderful is that these are ordinary people in small town America (and not an unusual small town) yet the author is able to make them fascinating. I was disappointed when the novel ended because I wanted to continue observing their lives. This is for readers who are tired of the literary pretentiousness represented by some of today's "in" authors like Jonathan Franzen, for readers who are tired of writers who don't believe in punctuation (as in the Nobel Prize winner BLINDNESS)and writers who can't write dialogue above the bodice ripper level. EMPIRE FALLS is refreshing and fun to read.
Rating:
Summary: Pith and Vinegar
Review: With Empire Falls, Richard Russo traces post-industrial decline in small town America and its resultant elements of disenfranchisement, power abuse, classism and violence. Each character in this small town has a personal struggle against this gradual descent. In effect then, Russo writes the perfect story of both universal and personal entropy. That he can do all that in a way that is compassionate, philosophical and funny makes Empire Falls a great read and a worthy recipient of the Pulitzer.
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