Empire Falls

by Richard Russo

book data

11,462 ratings, 3.81 average rating, 1,220 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		24%
4		42%
3		24%
2		6%
1		1%

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published

April 12th 2002 (first published 2001) by Vintage

binding

Paperback, 483 pages

literary awards

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2002)

isbn

0375726403 (isbn13: 9780375726408)

description

Like most of Richard Russo's earlier novels, Empire Falls is a tale of blue-collar life, which itself increasingly resembles a kind of high-wire act p...more

[close] Like most of Richard Russo's earlier novels, Empire Falls is a tale of blue-collar life, which itself increasingly resembles a kind of high-wire act performed without the benefit of any middle-class safety nets. This time, though, the author has widened his scope, producing a comic and compelling ensemble piece. There is, to be sure, a protagonist: fortysomething Miles Roby, proprietor of the local greasy spoon and the recently divorced father of a teenage daughter. But Russo sets in motion a large cast of secondary characters, drawn from every social stratum of his depressed New England mill town. We meet his ex-wife Janine, his father Max (another of Russo's cantankerous layabouts), and a host of Empire Grill regulars. We're also introduced to Francine Whiting, a manipulative widow who owns half the town--and who takes a perverse pleasure in pointing out Miles's psychological defects.

Miles does indeed have a tendency to take it on the chin. (At one point he alludes to his own "natural propensity for shit-eating.") And his role as Mr. Nice Guy thrusts him into all sorts of clashes with his not-so-nice contemporaries, even as the reader patiently waits for him to blow his top. It would be impossible to summarize Russo's multiple plot lines here. Suffice it to say that he touches on love and marriage, lust and loss and small-town economics, with more than a soupçon of class resentment stirred into the broth. This is, in a sense, an epic of small and large frustrations: "After all, what was the whole wide world but a place for people to yearn for their heart's impossible desires, for those desires to become entrenched in defiance of logic, plausibility, and even the passage of time, as eternal as polished marble." Yet Russo's comedic timing keeps the novel from collapsing into an orgy of breast-beating, and his dialogue alone--snappy and natural and efficiently poignant--is sufficient cause to put Empire Falls on the map. --Bob Brandeis

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 14,155)

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12/12/07

Linda rated it:

bookshelves: fiction

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: everybody, but especially those with more than a passing acquaintance with small-town life

This was a book my brother really enjoyed and recommended to me as recently as this summer. So it went on my list. :o)

My brother passed away on October 9, 2007. Today (well, since it's after midnight, technically, yesterday) is his birthday, so it seems fitting that I've finally gotten around to posting this review today.

When I finish a book, I find I kind of have to let things simmer in my brain a bit before I can really parse out all my reactions to it. I’m not sur...more

Like this review? yes (11 people liked it)

1 comment

03/03/07

Joshua rated it:

Read in January, 2007

Quite honestly one of the most amazing portraits of small town life I have ever read. A diverse set of characters, all real, portrayed with honesty, the good and the bad . . . all struggling with their own fears, faults, and desires. This is a novel of aching beauty, overflowing with symbolism. While the plot appears to move at a snail's pace, the real beauty of this novel is that it is so true to what life is like in a town as small as Empire Falls . . . a once booming mill town that is living ...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

1 comment

06/09/08

Matt rated it:

Read in June, 2008

I really, really like Russo. It's easy to plow through -- 480 pages gone in nothing flat, but the characters nonetheless come to life. For my sake, it doesn't hurt that his protagonists tend to be middling middle-aged nice-guys. But Russo is at his best when it comes to the oddball supporting cast -- the cantankerous Max Russo, the abrasive Minty clan, "batshit" Father Tom. I thought this book to be a step short of "Straight Man", but that's not putting it down much.
...more

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01/08/08

Susan rated it:

Read in February, 2006

recommended to Susan by: a co-worker
recommends it for: people who enjoy being bored out of their gourd

I don't get the hype over this book. I normally appreciate tedious attention to detail (see my review on "The Corrections"), but this novel was a little too tedious even for me. I found it to be a big, long yawn. Not even HBO could save this story (the mini series was even worse than the book). SPOILER ALERT: if you want to read a better book that involves a school shooting, read Picault's "Nineteen Minutes"-- fresher and more exciting.

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

1 comment

06/06/08

Jane rated it:

A small town in Maine. I could almost describe it from memory of my early years as a seasonal visitor there. The characters are so real, and we have a "silver fox" in our community, too. Teachers have to love the description of the art teacher's scene. The novel is wry and poignant, one of the best.

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

1 comment

06/27/08

Johnny rated it:

bookshelves: light-novels

Read in June, 2008

"Diverting one's attention from the past was not the same as envisioning and embarking upon a future." (p. 19) While this seems to be the theme of Empire Falls by Richard Russo, my biggest problem with this novel is that there doesn't seem to be any move toward the future in this novel. Everyone in the book seems to be so entangled in the misdeeds of their parents and grandparents, as well as their own, that they can't cut free and live that future.

Even when the hopes and d...more

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03/31/08

Rasmus rated it:

Read in July, 2008

recommends it for: Anybody.

I bought this book having only read on the back of it's cover and seeing that it had won the Pulitzer. I half-way expected to find it sligthly boring for that same reason, simpy because I tend to like books with a fair amount of action. And "Empire Falls" has very little action.

But man, this book is so well written, I had to stop and curse out loud several times, being a writer myself. Small, everyday situations become intensely interesting, as the web of relationships beco...more

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02/25/08

Caitlin rated it:

The book begins with a brilliant and unforgettable image but becomes increasingly less memorable as the book continues. Russo's style is pleasantly lulling and subtle--appropriate especially here for the description of the slow demise of a midland maine town. But the book goes on too long, and the ending is completely unsatisfying.

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01/29/09

Nick rated it:

There is something about the town of Empire Falls. While vibrant and currentally afloat, the reader has the feeling in the back of their throat that this town is slowly dying. Its businesses are slowly folding, it's people stuck on the side of the river of life. Everything is just sitting, slowly building up and then deteriorating.
This inner feeling is one of many that make Empire Falls one of the most gripping and thrilling, yet undeniably relatable and realistic novels I have read...more

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01/29/09

Brianna rated it:

The book is overflowing with symbolism, and was very interesting to analyze. Power and control are a big motif, and the symbolism of the river is used throughout the book. The plot really picks up about three fourths of the way through, and I couldn’t put it down. The lives of the small town characters are filled with scandal, affairs, murders, and mysteries. There are a lot of characters to keep track of which can get a little confusing. I found it a little boring for the first half at least,...more

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11/22/08

Bonnie rated it:

bookshelves: reviewed-books

An award winner, deservedly so. More depth than Nobody's fool, but Russo's humour still intact.

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01/29/09

Matt rated it:

Charming. Empire Falls is about the quirks and difficulties of small town life. The main character is Miles Roby, an intelligent but unsuccessful man stuck in the town of Empire Falls and its dreary life.

I think the two main strengths are its characters and its symbols. Some characters are quite funny, such as the dad, and some are sinister, but all are believable and interesting. I appreciated the role of every character.

Russo did a great job placing random as symbols....more

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08/21/08

John rated it:

Read in December, 2008

If future archaeologists have nothing but novels written over the past 20 years or so to judge our society by, they will come to the following conclusions:
1. Nearly everyone used foul language (although perhaps the future archaeologists won't know that it was foul language).
2. Nearly everyone thought about sex most of the time.
3. Almost all adults were either divorced, in the process of getting a divorce, or remarried after having been divorced.
4. Young people spent a por...more If future archaeologists have nothing but novels written over the past 20 years or so to judge our society by, they will come to the following conclusions:
1. Nearly everyone used foul language (although perhaps the future archaeologists won't know that it was foul language).
2. Nearly everyone thought about sex most of the time.
3. Almost all adults were either divorced, in the process of getting a divorce, or remarried after having been divorced.
4. Young people spent a portion of their lives in a horrible place called "high school," where all but a tiny elite were ostracized and mocked. (Was every author an outcast in high school?)
All of the above applies to Richard Russo's "Empire Falls." It also covers most of what I didn't like about the book.
This left a lot to like. Russo offers a compelling narrative that is -- cliche alert -- hard to put down. He presents interesting characters, although perhaps they lack in depth. It's easy to tell who you're supposed to like and who you're not supposed to like.
You're supposed to like the central character, Miles Roby, who runs the Empire Grill in Empire Falls, a town in Maine that appears to be in an irreversible decline.
One of the central story lines involves Miles and his teenage daughter Christina, aka Tick. This relationship was the most attractive part of the book for me. I wanted to be a dad for a very long time, and I always pictured myself as the father of a daughter. So I tend to vicariously experience this relationship through nauseatingly sentimental movies such as "Father of the Bride" and "My Girl" and even in recent episodes of the "Funky Winkerbean" comic strip.
Miles is sort of like the dad I picture myself to be, and Tick is sort of like the daughter I imagine. I like how Miles and Tick find "unintentional humor in the form of gaffes in the Empire Gazette, misspellings in advertisements for local stores, lapses in logic on printed signs like the one on the brick wall that surrounded the old empty shirt factory: NO TRESPASSING WITHOUT PERMISSION."
Russo writes some fine sentences, none better than the one at the beginning of Chapter 5, when we learn almost everything there is to know about Miles' father, Max:
"The donut shop in Empire Falls had always been one of Max Roby's favorite places because of its smoking policy, which was, 'Go ahead. See if we care.'"
Although "Empire Falls" is an easy read, Russo writes a few sentences that leave me saying: How's that again? For example:
"What Tick's coming to realize is that in some ways Zack's never been interested in her either, though not, she suspects, in the same way he's not interested in Candace."
But maybe that's not such a bad sentence. Perhaps it reflects the way a teenage girl thinks. I wouldn't know.
(less)

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

2 comments

06/05/08

Karen Pittelman rated it:

Read in June, 2008

On the one hand, smooth, skilled--flawless, even--character development and story telling. Never a clunky moment. (Well, except for one perhaps overly-dramatic plot choice near the end.) Then there's that pitch-perfect New England voice, the witty dialogue. On the other hand, it bummed me out that misogyny was driving force of so much of the plot. Of course, that's not all there is. The book wrestles compellingly with class, with control, with destiny and faith. It takes its time to look ...more

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06/03/08

Mike rated it:

Read in July, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I was a little disappointed with this book, even though I think the prose is quite often excellent. Russo manages a large number of characters with distinct personalities and perspectives on the main narrative, and that's pretty impressive. My general reason for thinking this book falls a little flat is Russo's apparent unwillingness to make a couple of hard choices with his characters or to keep his mouth shut when silence is better than filling in the gaps in the story. I've always felt that...more I was a little disappointed with this book, even though I think the prose is quite often excellent. Russo manages a large number of characters with distinct personalities and perspectives on the main narrative, and that's pretty impressive. My general reason for thinking this book falls a little flat is Russo's apparent unwillingness to make a couple of hard choices with his characters or to keep his mouth shut when silence is better than filling in the gaps in the story. I've always felt that movies which end with the little paragraphs telling you what happened to all the charaters afterward suffer from clumsy story-telling. A well composed narrative doesn't need to explain "what happened next" and can survive (or even thrive) on the negative spaces--the suggestive gaps in information. Russo can't help himself and tells us "what happened" even when we'd probably be better off guessing. I have a couple of specific things to say below, but I wanted to give a "spoiler" warning here, in case you haven't read it and don't want to find out details.

There are some stand-out moments, for example an exceptionally well executed chapter where he drifts in and out of the head of a gay priest as he comes to realize that the senile older priest he cares for has taken the parish car to Key West. The chapter winds lazily from this turning point in the story, to the priest's brush with homosexuality, to his feelings about it, his self-deception about it. Meanwhile he struggles with writing a sermon and gives readers a kind of third-party perspective on the main story line involving an affair between two long-dead characters. Very well done.

But ultimately, the ending is disappointing to me. It was clear to me that Miles' daughter should have died. Miles misery was the price that he was paying for his mother's infidelity. This is already an unfair arrangement, which would have been thoroughly underscored by his loss of the thing he cared about most. But more importantly, his daughter was the largest piece of leverage that Ms. Whiting had over Miles, so losing Tick would, in a very sad but clear way, free him from Whiting's control. Russo is unwilling to kill Tick off and saves her in a less-than-believable way.

Another example of Russo's lack of restraint is the "Epilogue" which unncecessarily explains the remaining mysterious parts of the story. There's even a tacky heading half way through it: "So What Prevented Him?" Totally disappointing. The book would have been better for leaving us guessing about the reasoning behind C.B.'s suicide, which pretty obviously had to do with Grace Roby even without Russo's rib-elbowing. I don't think that the "Epilogue" was the result of lack of respect for readers' competence--though I could imagine some patronizing editor at Vintage saying "you can't just let the story end *there* why did C.B. kill himself?" I think it comes more from Russo's own lack of self-control as a writer.

Bottom line: definitely a fine piece of prose writing, but I can't get over the feeling of being force-fed the narrative. (less)

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

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02/02/08

Rick rated it:

bookshelves: fiction

Read in May, 2005

Big novel about a little place in Maine. The town is in decline and the novel presents numerous characters and plots and overtells most of them, rather than let everyone speak for himself or circumstances to reveal meaning, the author piles on the evidence and looks in on character’s thinking without revealing their complexity. If scenes don’t repeat themselves, what they represent about the characters or fate of the town and its people do. Too much of the storytelling is pedestrian, though ...more

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12/28/07

Paula rated it:

bookshelves: book-club

Read in February, 2009

What I found to be really remarkable about this book is its ending, not because it's so action-packed (especially in comparison to the rest of the book) but because the reader's sense of foreboding builds so subtly throughout the book until one can figure out which character it will be to cause the inevitable catastrophe.

Actually, this entire book could be a study in subtlety, because the nuances in each character are so lightly illustrated as to catch the unsuspecting reader off-gua...more What I found to be really remarkable about this book is its ending, not because it's so action-packed (especially in comparison to the rest of the book) but because the reader's sense of foreboding builds so subtly throughout the book until one can figure out which character it will be to cause the inevitable catastrophe.

Actually, this entire book could be a study in subtlety, because the nuances in each character are so lightly illustrated as to catch the unsuspecting reader off-guard. This is mainly due to the slowness of the dawnings of each revelation to the novel's main character, Miles Roby; in fact, even readers who typically skim (and this is a pretty big novel, so skimming for some is inevitable) can pick up subtle hints that show, for instance, who Charlie Mayne really is and who is Charlene's lover. Luckily, Miles eventually figures this out (at the very end of the book, of course)and more, so one can't be completely frustrated by his seemingly selective understanding of the things going on around him.

Also, very few loose ends are left at novel's end, which is what I prefer when I read a stand-alone book. I'm curious to find out if Miles really did ever inherit the Empire Grill, but in the end it doesn't really matter. I also wish I knew if Tick ever had contact again with her summer love interest since her scheduled rendezvous obviously couldn't be kept. We do find out who was responsible for Cindy Whiting's accident as well as exactly what was wrong with John Voss and why he acted so strangely all the time. (His story is the most tragic, on several levels, and incredibly disturbing, so we had to know that his disappearance wouldn't last, leaving the reader unresolved over his fate; I knew there had to be a reason why I kept thinking of Pearl Jam's song "Jeremy" every time he was mentioned.)

The book ends rather abruptly, though, and perhaps too happily (if that's the right word to use to describe the ending). I mean, for the sake of the book innocents had to be taken to show the randomness of some violence (amid the deliberate planning that was used), but it's almost too tidy that Tick gets out alive. The Catholic dependency also is dropped maybe too quickly, considering how tightly Miles holds on to that during the first three parts of the novel, but I suppose that's not necessarily all that important a thread to hold on to. Also, the shifting perspective throughout the novel is absolutely essential so that the reader can pick up (more quickly than Miles can, at least) what's going on with other characters' motivations (although probably the best character-building moment comes from Cindy Whiting in her last face-to-face interaction with Miles, which shows just how tightly readers hold on to Miles's perspective, which isn't necessarily always the right one), but near the end we're so far removed from Miles that getting back inside his head seems forced, as a way to simply bring the novel to its conclusion.

Still, this is an amazing book overall simply because of the way it so accurately portrays the positives and negatives of small-town life. It doesn't have to be talking about a Maine city specifically to ring true to those who've experienced such an environment where everyone knows everyone else as a rule because that's just how it is. It picks up intensity as the end looms near (and one can't help but wonder exactly where the book is going or how it's ever going to make it there) and becomes less and less easy to put down.(less)

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09/09/07

margueya rated it:

Where has this book been all my life?? Ok, Khay, I know you and Yitzchak have raved about it but somehow each time I tried it I couldn't get into it, and finally last week I gave it one last shot and was totally hooked. It reminds me of a higher quality Maeve Binchy in Russo's ablity to draw such colorful, consistant characters who get a rise out of you and all that small town flavor. This was EXACTLY what I needed when I was looking for something light but gripping (ie, NOT The Manny) - well...more

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06/16/07

Brendan rated it:

Filled with equal parts heartache and belly laughs, the book’s home is the fictional ex-mill town of Empire Falls, Maine, and its centerpiece is a high school football game, which Russo’s hapless hero Miles Roby reluctantly attends with his friend Cindy Whiting. (Why reluctantly? It’s the proverbial long story, having to do with the fact that Miles, who runs the Empire Grill, is in the throes of a divorce—his wife Janine having fooled around with the health club guy and then confessed it...more

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01/29/09

Zach rated it:

My book of the year, at first, this story promised to be a loving read about a father and daughter, but it ended up turning into much more than that. The novels depths, reaches into your heart and allows you to really appreciate relationships between people. The best and worst of people is brought out in this book, it allows you to understand how people react when put into difficult situations and circumstances. It is amazing the Russo can fit the great amount of story into such a short novel.

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"After all, what was the whole wide world but a place for people to yearn for their heart's impossible desires, for those desires to become entrenched in defiance of logic, plausibility, and even the passage of time, as eternal as polished marble. " More quotes...