Rating: 
Summary: A really good coming-of-age novel
Review: Empire Falls is a coming-of-age novel. Wait, before you say "BURN IT," listen to this: it's NOT a sad, sickly, woe-is-me coming-of-age novel! In fact, not only is this one of the more amusing books I've ever read, but it's one of the few books that I actually loved despite a less-than-satisfactory beginning.Empire Falls is a small town in Maine, where everyone knows everyone else, the poverty level is threatening to become the norm, where one woman owns half the town and its fortunes, where generation after generation of families find themselves stuck, unable to move out. The crux of the story is Miles Roby, a 42 year old man who runs the Empire Grill, a small diner ALSO owned by the woman who owns half the town, Francine Whiting. The book is a combination of present and flashback, of the adult point of view and a teenager's ocassional point of view (Miles's daughter, Tick), of poignant passages and absolutely hysterical anecdotes. The book isn't merely the story of Miles; rather, it's the story of Miles AND the people who make up his daily life, speckled and often slammed with the events that make each person "come of age," presented in a "fly on the wall" sort of way. I read this book as part of a coming-of-age project for AP English Lit, after having chosen from a list. I wanted to read A Clockwork Orange, but alas, my library didn't have it. After being extremely irked that I'd have to chose another book, I sat down with Empire Falls. I really, really didn't like it at first. Most people will hate the way the book starts. The first chapter, the prologue, is essentially a flashback to the town's original source of wealth, C. B. Whiting, husband of Francine, and his antics. The humor is not apparent here; in fact, it seems a pain to read. Don't let this turn you off! You need to read at least 1/4 into the book before the characters flow smoothly, before the actual incredible humor shines through. Russo does a very good job at saving the book from becoming a typical coming-of-age read. You don't put the book down drained from having been taken on an excruciatingly painful journey through a person's life. Rather, you feel fulfilled, as though you made a few new friends who gave you few laughs and great insight into an obscure town. I'd recommend this to anyone. The ending is either a love it or hate it sort of thing; I personally loved it. Check it out!
Rating:
Summary: A real page turner
Review: This was the first novel on my assembled reading list for 2004. Wow, what a way to start this year's reading! Russo's narrative is brilliant. He can spin a spellbinding yarn and certainly keeps his reader turning pages; even into the wee hours of the night. The best word I can use to describe his work is, simply, 'detail.' He provides an enormous amount of detail that many writers fail to use when describing emotions, characteristic, and qualities of his characters, action, and, especially in the dialogue; the detail about what is being said and how it is being said is amazing. This, I believe is what keeps the story interesting. Also, Russo's character development is astounding. He builds his character's lives with care, vibrancy, and elegance. The reader is quietly cajoled into completely understanding and being able to relate to each character simply via Russo's wonderful ability in character development. In fact, his character development is so strong that many times I would say things out loud while I was reading the work in response to what was being developed. Not many works that I have read, including the classics, have caused me to do this. Finally, Russo has another quality that is rare in writers of the 20th century. He is able to make his reader love and at the same time hate certain characters in his work. He can cause the reader to feel genuine anguish over certain events simply by how he describes them, and at the same time cause elation in the reader regarding the same events. This quality is quite difficult to describe, you simply have to read this story to understand what I am trying to detail here. FYI, for those who love reading great literature but are often times put off by foul language or other elements that are offensive, then a warning must be given here. While I loved Russo's story, and truly believed he is a brilliant writer, he does use profane language, which sometimes, I believe helps the story, while at others detracts from it. If you are not offended by this, then you will certainly love this work. I recommend this book but with that warning attached.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful novel that will stay with you
Review: The elegance of this 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning novel can be described best by one of his characters, teenager Tick, who decides "just because things happen slow doesn't mean you'll be ready for them." Miles, the central character of Russo's story, runs the Empire Grill in economically depressed Empire Falls, Maine. He ekes out a life hoping for parity: that his loyalty to the grill and to its wealthy owner Mrs. Whiting will result in his owning the business, that his patience with his daughter Tick will be rewarded with openness, that his soon-to-be-ex wife Janine will find what was lacking in him in her fiancé Walt, that his youthful failure to escape the town will have some redemption. But the complexity of Mrs. Whiting's interest in him remains out of his grasp, and the dynamics of Tick's life are largely hidden from him. Janine has a growing need for exactly what she hated so much about Miles. Worst of all, Miles sees himself as destined to remain a loser who gives and never gets. Russo explores the storylines of all these characters and others, allowing the reader intimate glimpses into their lives. In Empire Falls, relationships between husbands and wives and between parents and children are never simple. Russo's characters suffer in ways that are passionately ordinary - that is, until everything funnels into one explosive, extraordinary moment. I literally had to put the book down to absorb this climatic scene. That this scene was both prepared for and totally shocking speaks to the author's skill. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The characters are lively and sympathetic - even the ones that might be called villains - and despite the quiet nature of the narrative, it is a difficult book to put down.
Rating:
Summary: Ended to soon
Review: Empire Falls was most engaging. I loved learning about the characters, and their past and present lives. The fact that the flash backs were in italics was excellent, so many books are confusing at first when the flash back style is used without pointing out the change in time. It was really an epic story and ended much to soon. Would have like to know how the characters continue their lives in this small New England town. Maybe Russo will write a sequel.
Rating: 
Summary: Not deserving of the Pulitzer
Review: This was a lousy book. Poor prose, unremarkable characters, a tedious plot. I barely finished it. Go out and read Yann Martel's marvelous Life of Pi instead. That's the book that should have won the Pulitzer in 2002.
Rating:
Summary: So Deserving of the Pulitzer
Review: I don't know what rock I was living under when this book came out.Luckily two different people highly recommended it to me this past year, and so I bit. It's rare that I say I would give something six stars if possible but this would be one of those cases. A brilliant character piece, "..Falls" centers around a middle aged man named Miles Roby, a manager of a diner in Empire Falls Maine. A blue collar textile mill town that is fading into obscurity year after year, Falls is a place that houses an array of rich characters, from the employees at the diner, to Miles' ex wife, to the wealthy matriarch who seems to own the entire town. I found myself saying that cliche line, "I didn't want it to end" A book and place to get lost in for a little.
Rating:
Summary: Effortless book to read with fun characters...
Review: This was a fun book to read. I loved Russo's style of developing the characters. The characters and situations in the book reminded me repeatedly of people and situations that have crossed my path in real life. I look forward to picking up another Russo book at some point. My only complaint with this book (and a minor one at that) is that the ending didn't wrap the story up in a nice bow for me, but such is life.
Rating:
Summary: Buy your own
Review: A book that must be read and read again. Fantastic! Definitely deserved the Pulitzer and much more. Read this slice of life tale about everyday people - you won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Lives up to all the hype
Review: Russo is a master of dialogue and of creating characters that stay with you long after you've closed the book. His specialty is ordinary blue-collar people (with memorable and endearing quirks, even the scoundrels) in down and out New England towns. In Empire Falls, which qualifies for the claim of being 'an epic,' Miles Roby is the divorced father of a teenaged daughter, proprietor of a local diner, and son of what has to be one of the most irritating and entertaining fathers ever created in literature. There's a huge case of secondary characters: his ex-wife, a disturbed teenage boy, patrons of the diner, and most memorable, the scathingly nasty widow who owns half the town and, by extension, all the people in it. Set pieces of comedic high-jinks are offset with pathos, regret, and other scenes that bring on the tears.
Empire Falls deals with love, fatherhood, lust, class politics, grief, and honor. There's a mystery, a small but important one, that threads its way insidiously through the book, a mystery having to do with exactly what the real relationship is between Miles and the town's matriarch...
Spectacular book.
Rating:
Summary: Puppet Life
Review: Pity the poor denizens of Empire Falls. Consigned to paralyzed existences, they struggle like flies on paper for some kind of end to the drudgery of menial jobs, empty marriages, and overdue bills. If there's nobility in their treadmill exertions, it never shines through. The only relief for the pitiable characters in Richard Russo's epic portrayal of life and death in a dying factory town lies in drink, memory, and the vain hope of escape to anywhere else. Like most of his compatriots in "Empire Falls," Miles Roby was born to his lot. But unlike them, someone dreamed for him. His mother Grace, a beautiful vision of his youth, stood guard over him like an angel, toiling in a factory and an abusive marriage, all to ensure that her beloved Miles realized the station in the world that his mind and soul deserved. But what neither Grace, nor Miles, nor anyone in Empire Falls could realize, was that their lives and futures were already decided, because they were owned by a force they couldn't comprehend or fight, but only fear. Francine Whiting is a villainess right out of TS Eliot or Ken Kesey, a cunning and ruthless virago with an insatiable appetite for control. Having long ago married into Empire Falls' founding family, and emerged through widowhood and shrewd manipulation into literal ownership of the town, she plays with her feeble-willed subjects like a cruel puppeteer, offering up empty hopes and false promises for better lives, all the while sucking the last vestiges of value from the dying town. Armed with two strong and warring main characters, Francine and Miles, Russo weaves a tale of compelling mysteries and betrayals, augmented by a style of writing that evokes pain and nobility in plain spoken but elegant prose. Like eddies in the town's polluted main river, sub-plots swirl and dissipate, sucked into the main whirlpool of the titanic struggle among Francine, Miles, and those in their orbit to rationalize and conquer the secrets of the past. Russo has firm control of his story. His skills as a writer prevent the sometimes pulpy material from descending into outright soap opera. He uses the clever Dickensian tool of leading the reader into the lives of the poor through the eyes of the rich, and proceeds to offer up a compelling, though often frustrating and depressing, tale of struggle and salvation,
culminating in the hard-- won but tentative triumph of the human spirit. He style is that of the old-fashioned novelist--no abstractions or experimentations here--but his use of a conventional literary construction still has the stamp of originality and significance. The worst that can be said of it can be said of the work is that it's about sad people, and is best read during a contemplative afternoon alone on a rainy, dreary day.
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