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Summary: Read it in two days...
Review: First and foremost, Richard Russo is a storyteller. With engaging, often hilarious characters ... true-to-life dialogue and situations ... a credible small-town setting ... people making the best of their often-disappointing lives ... this is a novel that reached out and grabbed me. I cared (and feared) what was going to happen next, how it was all going to come out. Yes, there are big, thought-provoking contemporary themes as well. But mostly, I was caught up in the story itself and, at its end, I found myself hoping for a sequel, not quite ready to let go. As others have said, Richard Russo is one of the best!!
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Summary: Memorable one-liners and vivid scene descriptions
Review: As the other reviews attest, this is a well written, intriguing and thought provoking novel. I've hardly read any novels in 30 years, generally enjoying history and other nonfiction, but this was a great read that I couldn't put down, and that I recommend it highly.Beside the well developed, believable characters and multiple interesting story lines, Russo delivers hundreds of memorable one-liners and vivid scene descriptions. No doubt this will be made into a movie. The main character, Miles Roby, constantly reflects on the "mistake" he made 20 years earlier by coming back to his terminally depressed hometown of Empire Falls, Maine and running a short order grill rather than finishing college and being the professor he imagined becoming. And yet, what's missing in his life? He is liked and respected, serves on the school board and provides other valued community services, is raising a fine daughter, has multiple social relationships, is surrounded by people who care about him and lives in a community with no traffic congestion. Is any of this worse than his plight might be in a soulless upscale suburb, sunbelt city or congested metro area surrounded by people who know and care little about him? Sure, Miles is no financial success, his wife left him and many of the people he knows have striking character flaws. But those things can happen anywhere. Being a lifelong resident of Empire Falls doesn't sound so bad to me.
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Summary: Russo is the American George Eliot
Review: Empire Falls tells the story of a town on the verge of disappearing, and the people who have already disappeared into it. Miles Roby, his disfigured brother Dave, his estranged wife, and his sensitive, wise daughter struggle like moths pinned to a board against the forces of revenge. Mrs. Whiting, who owns the Empire Grill, most of the town, and the bankrupt weaving mill, tries to impose her will on Miles to destroy his life, as her husband destroyed her life first by having an affair with Miles' mother, and then by committing a damaging mistake that ruins their future. Russo is obsessed with rotten fathers, crazy widows, ruined downtowns, places and people far away from dot.com lives, soccer momism, and corporate anonymity. For Russo, every act of malice rings down the years, every act of bravado is shamed by the light of day. In his books, people get on with their lives whether they want to or not. Much like George Eliot, in her masterwork, Middlemarch, Russo sees a community made up of the ambitions, desires, and failures of its inhabitants. No cowboys in this fiction, just trapped people who love and hate their bonds, like most of us.
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Summary: A book that's real and that I can feel
Review: This book is going to one day be considered a classic. Russo is an excellent story teller. Every page made me feel as if I were actually there in Empire Falls and as if I had known the characters my whole life.
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Summary: Jerome Weidman meets Garrison Keillor...
Review: ...with a dash of Stephen King, a soupçon of Sherwood Anderson, and a dollop of Edgar Lee Masters.
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Summary: Straight man moves to Maine
Review: Sorting through new releases in a small bookstore in Cork, Ireland, I found Empire Falls. Russo's previous triumph -- Straight Man -- made me receptive to his next work, and he did it again. Empire Falls beguiled me and drew me into an intricate web. While this is fiction, Russo has a method for intricate detail, small asides, and colorfully connected characters, coloring each with a clear sense of reality. Miles Roby has an understandably difficult life to manage: a disappointed soon-to-be ex-wife, a beautiful mother dying young, a struggling diner in failing blue-collar northern city, a troubled teenaged daughter, and several old nemeses he simply can't shake in this small, decaying town. And the middle-aged fears and doubts Russo portrays reminded me of my own mortality and the value of family and friends. Like Will and Joel in James Kaplan's Tw Guys from Verona, Miles and David Roby share some dark secrets and common struggles, not as supermen or masters of the universe, but as likeable if crippled protagonists. And Russo has the talent to remember the pettiness and pain of high school life as well. After reading this, you want to hug your children, call your retired parents, and make better contact with your friends. Humanity triumphs.
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Summary: Please, Mr. Russo....write more
Review: In 1994 I was forced to sit up (almost) all night at Laguardia Airport, waiting for a 6 a.m. flight and unwilling to pay for a hotel room. The only thing that kept me going was "Nobody's Fool" which I read in that one sitting. Later, I picked up his other books, thinking that the circumstances under which I fell in love with "Fool" may have enhanced my appreciation, but only found that his writing, clear, humorous, empathetic and true, is evidenced in all his books. Culminating in this last, wonderful book. Which leads me to ponder: why is it there are writers who just crank out page after page, book after book, and you simply don't care if they never write another word. And then there is Richard Russo, who you wish could find another 8 hours a day so he could give us a book a year. (Michael Chabon is another.)
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Summary: Reminds me of George Eliot
Review: After hearing about this novel on CBS Sunday morning, I thought I would try Russo. Now I will probably read all of his earlier novels. If you like a nineteenth-century realistic novel's pace, a richly textured background, thoroughly developed characters and a humor that arises from social observation of human foibles, some of them almost invisible without long familiarity with personalities, then you will love this (Austen and Eliot come to mind). And. . . a melodramatic but thoroughly earned climax that made me think of The Mill on the Floss.
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Summary: Russo on a Roll!!!
Review: Richard Russo is one of the best novelists of our times. Don't take my word for it. The review of this book in the New York Times Book Review Section said so and this is one of the few times I agree with "the paper of record." (My wife buys it - I don't) Having read Nobody's Fool and Straight Man, I had high expectations for this book to begin with. Add to that, it is set in the State of Maine, as am I. I know the town of Empire Falls. It is a microcosim of many Maine mill and factory towns. And I know some of the people Russo has brought to life to tell his story. What is most interesting to me is that he had the insight and ability to weave such an entertaining book out of the situation he describes. Miles Roby is the central character of this book. Miles has dreams. To move to Martha's Vinyard and run a business there instead of the diner he is running (but not owning) in Empire Falls. To get Charlene Gardiner into bed which is something he has been lusting to do since he was a teen and she was the four year older beauty of Empire Falls. She now works for him as a waitress and knows what he wants, but tells him he would be disappointed. And on it goes with wonderful characters populating Empire Falls, all doing their best to frustrate Miles's plans and schemes. Woven throughout the book is an explanation of the past; his relationship with his mother who has died and his father who refuses to; the hold that Francine Whiting has on his life as the town's richest citizen and control freak; and on it goes until at the end a resolution is reached which surely does not contain great surprise, but resolves things in a believeable and real fashion. That is Russo's strength. He writes about real people; puts the most wonderful dialogue in their mouths and just entertains you from beginning to end with his story telling. If he is not on your list of authors to read, he should be. If he already is and you don't have this book - what are you waiting for?
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Summary: Another Russo treasure!
Review: Years ago, while browsing a bookstore, I found a softcover book called The Risk Pool. Having never heard of the author, but intrigued by the blurb, I decided to give it a try. Was I ever glad that I did. Richard Russo's development of his characters was so rich, so complete that I felt I really knew them. When I finished the book it was so bittersweet because I was not yet ready to let them go. I then picked up his first book, Mohawk. I was very glad to have Risk Pool first because I was not nearly as enthralled with Mohawk. It had its moments but had I read it first I am not sure I would have bothered with The Risk Pool. But I already knew this author's potential and eagerly awaited his next novel. I have never been disappointed. Nobody's Fool was truly wonderful and again I found the characters becoming very real for me. The Straight Man too was great reading. With all the great things I have to say about Russo's earlier works, Empire Falls might very well be his best yet. So immediately we get not only to meet but to know several people, their idiosyncrasies, nuances, and personalities. By page 50, I was deep into their world and loving it. From there it just kept getting better. Having grown up in a big city (NY) rather than a small town, the world Russo writes about is foreign to me. His story telling ability brings me right in every time. An absolute must read.
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