Empire Falls

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Summary: Richard Russo, "Empire Falls"
Review: Despite its portentously "symbolic" title (hmm, an empire is falling...?), the most refreshing and admirable quality of Richard Russo's new novel is its seductive specificity. In portraying members of several generations and social classes in the town of Empire Falls, Maine, Russo never presents a detail that isn't rooted in real life, nor a character who gives off a whiff of anything remotely allegorical. And though the plot touches on several topical issues--childhood trauma, small-town economic decline, and schoolyard violence, among others--it never uses them as subjects for polemic. Each one connects with your emotions directly, through the lives of the characters it affects.

"Empire Falls" is engaging on many levels. The plot is gripping, the dialogue realistic (and frequently hilarious), and the friendships and enmities among characters unfailingly tender even when bordering on the tragic. Much of this tenderness can be attributed to the character of Miles Roby, the novel's protagonist. Literary kin to John Updike's Harry Angstrom and Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe, decent but confused American Everymen, Miles comes across as a complex, occasionally exasperating, but never less than sympathetic figure.

The novel's structure feels a bit unwieldy at first: a number of interspersed chapters are each made up of an extended flashback set completely in italic type. But the reason for this grows clearer as the book progresses, until toward the end the interruptions become as crucial to the novel's development as the events of the main story line. There were times during my reading of "Empire Falls" that I felt I was holding in my hands not just a certain candidate for all of next year's literary awards but a possible future American classic. It reawakened every fond feeling I've had about contemporary U.S. fiction. It also, miraculously, seems to encapsulate in its 500 pages everything good about American novels since the middle of the last century.

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Summary: Disappointing
Review: I liked Straight Man a lot, thought Nobody's Fool was wonderful, and thought that Risk Pool was one of the best books I have read, so I was very excited that Russo had a new book coming out. I even took pleasure in ordering it in advance. Unfortunately for me I didn't like Empire Falls very much. I found Miles Roby sanctimonious. His pretext for staying in Empire Falls (his love for a waitress) seemed pretextual which maybe it was supposed to be, but what was it a pretext for: his love of small town life or being a big fish in a small pond, better than everyone else in town, santimonious? I also thought there was quite a bit of foreshadowing that went no where (e.g. the repeated suggestions that Ms. Whiting had an agenda with respect to Miles). I also wasn't wild about some of the other characters (like Tick who was a little too wise). Of course, there was a lot to like. The philosophical musings of the characters and the descriptions of Empire Falls were good enough to make it worth reading, but definetely not a winner.

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Summary: Long live Empire Falls!
Review: Empire Falls, Maine is a cross-section of our own foibles and failures, graces and gallant gestures. From Miles "Mr. Nice Guy" Roby's struggle to build a better life for his daughter while valiantly facing his own defeats to Mrs. Whiting's machinations and manipulations of the town and it's residents, Russo has created a novel of infinite depth and panoramic scope. Anyone hailing from a depressed area of the country will recognize the laughable and likable characters who populate Russo's very funny, very real and often scary portrait of small-town America.

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Summary: A Truly Remarkable Novel
Review: I don't think it would be a stretch to say that Empire Falls will be one of the best novels you will have read in recent times. Everyday people struggling to survive in the decaying town of Empire Falls may not make the most promising beginning of a storyline. But author Richard Russo's remarkable writing makes the story and the characters so alive and so endearing in the midst of tragedy and despair that the book simply sparkles.

Miles Roby, proprietor of the local diner, is the central character around whom all of the secondary characters revolve around. His cynical teenage daughter, his confused ex-wife, his colorful father, his high school friends who have all settled into various jobs in Empire Falls, et al. These are all people we have met and known in real life. People who started out with high ambitions only to find themselves ultimately back home continuing the legacies of their parents. But this book is not a downer. It's Russo's witticism that brings that special degree of levity, sensitivity and warmth to all those people, passages and conversations that makes the novel so alive and so great.

This is the one. This is the book that once you've finished reading you will want to tell everyone else to read. Don't miss Empire Falls.

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Summary: Just fantastic!
Review: I am in awe of Richard Russo. Empire Falls is a wonderful novel, brilliantly crafted and completely readable. This novel tells the story of Empire Falls, a Maine town that has seen better, much better days, and the people who inhabit it, namely Miles Roby, a middle-aged man who is not having the best of times. Both Miles and the town of Empire Falls have shown much promise, but then things change. For the town, it was the closing of the textile factories about twenty years earlier. For Miles, it was his return to the town from college, one semester short of his degree. Miles now runs the Empire Diner under the thumb of Mrs. Whiting, a wealthy old woman who apparently owns most of the town. His marriage is almost over, his ex-wife soon to marry the local health club owner. He is trying to salvage both his relationship with his teenage daughter and the restaurant he manages. The aforementioned restaurant may face financial ruin. He and all the other residents in the town try to get their life back together, trying to find that promise that they all felt their lives once held back when the mills were still working.

What I first perceived as a depressing tale is actually a story full of hope with a touch of wonderful, earnest humor. Most of the characters and their relationships with each other are funny, not in the Bridget Jones, low-brow sort of way, but in an everyday, wholehearted sort of way. Miles's ex-wife, Janine, comes up with a funny, yet somehow sad, future of the lives of the Empire Falls High School football players and cheerleaders as she watches the big game from the stands that is devastatingly accurate, but funny just the same. Empire Falls is truly a fantastic novel. I couldn't put it down. Highly recommended...

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Summary: walking up subway stairs with this book in my nose
Review: I rarely like fiction, but I could not put this book down. Russo's understanding and observations of human nature are subtle but genius. He captures the nuances of mundane life with the shrug of a poet. Things we think but don't say, how we feel but can't express. Since I read this book, nothing has compared, and I have had to read more of Russo's work to compensate for the loss I feel at having finished this book. His other work is just as good, especially the short story "Joy Ride" in "The Whore's Child and Other Stories." From a non-fiction reader who is wary of any novel, take my advice and read this book. Unbelievably believable.

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Summary: glad it's over
Review: I am at a loss to find one character, or one plot-line in this book, that wasn't an overused, overwritten cliche. From the evil stepmother/witch-figure Mrs Whiting (complete with evil feline sidekick), to the beautiful Grace Roby from the wrong side of the tracks, to the ex-wife Janine who finds that losing weight and her ex-husband can't buy her happiness, I was really relieved when this book ended saving me from any more tedious dialogue from Mr. Russo.

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Summary: You'll Enjoy This Book!
Review: Empire Falls only shored up my convictions that parenthood is an enterprise fraught with peril. Miles Roby, a resident of the titular Eastern town, is trying to preserve his relationship with his daughter, Tick, while he's going through a difficult divorce. Tick is mostly sympathetic to Miles, because she sees her mother, Janine, as the villain (Janine subtly announces her desire for a divorce by taking an obnoxious lover, the "Silver Fox"); since Janine has custody, Tick spends as much time as possible helping out her dad at the Empire Grill. Miles manages the Grill for Francine Whiting, the rich widow of local textile magnate C.B. Whiting, with the understanding that he will inherit the diner upon Mrs. Whiting's death. Sadly, Miles has been managing the place for twenty years now, ever since he dropped out of college to care for his terminally ill mother, and the old bag (Francine, that is) shows no signs of slowing down. All Miles wants is for Tick to grow up happy and to do better than he did, since every passing year brings the point home more painfully that Miles failed his own mother by dropping out and allowing Empire Falls to suck him back in for life. Miles' father, Max, is a classic deadbeat dad, and the cause of much unhappiness for Miles' mother; now in his seventies, Max aspires to nothing more than putting the squeeze on Miles for petty cash, and getting others to buy Max drinks. Falls closely and relentlessly (but not heartlessly) explores some of the many, many ways there are to fail as a child, a parent, and a human being, by following the generations of Robys and Whitings, and their intertwined histories, in Empire Falls.

Russo's new novel represents something of a departure in tone. His previous books generally feature lovable screw-ups as protagonists: hard-luck wiseacres who accept quirks of fate with unnaturally good humor, and their occasional windfalls with bafflement. Max Roby seems to be the closest thing to a conventional Russoian (Russian?) protagonist, but he is relegated to a supporting role, and his main contribution to the book is as comic relief. Even-tempered, endlessly patient Miles earns many a sneer from his more footloose associates for having allowed his life to stagnate behind a diner's counter, and generally seems to take things far more to heart than any of the author's previous protagonists. In addition, Russo usually lends his plots a light-hearted, comic touch through his devil-may-care characters; be prepared for Falls' abrupt and scary turn toward the darker side of human failure, which jars the reader abruptly after the fun and frolicsome first half of the novel. It's nice to see that Russo is finally permitting his characters to take things seriously, although the results are a little jerky and oddly paced this time around. Nevertheless, the writing is as consistently funny and polished as any of Russo's previous books, and, if you can stomach the ending (I wasn't talking about the dangers of raising kids for no reason, you know), there's much to enjoy in Empire Falls. Pick up a copy! Another wonderful, more obscure Amazon-pick I want to recommend, in addition to Empire Falls, is The Losers' Club by Richard Perez, a small, wonderfully entertaining little novel which has resonated in my mind for quite some time.

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Summary: A leisurely stroll through Unrealtown
Review: Richard Russo's novel is assembled with love and careful words. Some scenes are whimsical. Others are ominous. He creates a world that you can see in your mind's eye. His craft is obvious, and I would gladly read anything else by him. BUT: This is one frustrating novel because it feels like it's wandering aimlessly most of the time. There is one highly dramatic plotline that feels pasted onto the story. Because Russo tells stories grounded in a very real world, it's jarring when characters speak like eccentric characters from one of David E. Kelley's television series. In other words, like characters from a very unreal world. And this won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction?

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Summary: All fall down
Review: I hadn't heard about the author before I saw the book at the bookstore. Having seen it won the Pulitzer Prize, I wanted to give it a try. I also didn't read anything like an american small town story before, though I did just finish Jackson McCrae's THE CHILDREN'S CORNER and loved that. It sounded interesting. I just finished reading the book. Russo did a terrific job in analyzing the characters in the story. I don't know much about the small towns in the US. I am not even an American. EMPIRE FALLS really makes you think about your life. Everyone has good memories and even dreams like Miles Roby in Empire Falls. But no one is sure if it's these dreams that make us feel like we do today. It might as well be these very same dreams holding us back. Maybe it's a combination of dreams and our environment. Empire Falls displays a warm picture of living in a small town and especially how people live their lives with all the happiness, entertainment but also the boundaries. Fantastic read. Russo does an amazing job of capturing small town life in Maine. Having grown up in rural Maine, I found myself laughing right out loud at times to references that I am not sure 'out-of-staters' would realize as true Maine humor. I loved the line about the 'Massholes', after hearing the very phrase come out of my own father's mouth every summer. The people in this book are well developed and very human. The book was a great read straight through, but really picked up for me in the last half when everything started to come together. The last 100 pages I read in one sitting because I couldn't put the book down. I highly recommend the McCrae books "Children's Corner" and "Bark of the Dogwood" for equally great reads.