false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172536990m/187020.jpg 187020 16 Like most of Richard Russo's earlier novels, <I>Empire Falls</I> 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. <p> 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 <I>Empire Falls</I> on the map. <I>--Bob Brandeis</I> 826474 2001 Empire Falls total:13545|5:144|4:230|3:154|2:41|1:17| 13545 51506 16898 1388 4 13 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 12 10:41:47 -0800 2007 Sun Mar 16 01:22:27 -0700 2008 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 ...more...]]> 5 3 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat Mar 03 05:32:17 -0800 2007 Tue Apr 24 04:30:14 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 3 false false Mon Jun 09 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 09 18:43:14 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 09 20:49:38 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 3 false false Wed Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Tue Jan 08 07:56:54 -0800 2008 Tue Sep 08 08:01:07 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 3 false false Fri Jun 06 09:47:29 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 06 09:49:33 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 2 false false Fri Jun 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 27 16:36:04 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 27 17:28:05 -0700 2008 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. Ev...more...]]> 4 5 false false Tue Jul 01 09:23:35 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 31 21:37:05 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 01 09:23:35 -0700 2008
...more...]]> 3 2 false false Mon Feb 25 18:59:41 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 25 19:05:37 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu Jan 29 11:34:14 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 30 10:51:23 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 3 false false Thu Jan 29 11:04:57 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 29 20:33:39 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 4 false false Sat Nov 22 10:56:23 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 22 10:58:42 -0800 2008 5 1 false false Thu Jan 29 22:13:44 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 29 22:23:47 -0800 2009
I think the two main strengths are its characters and its symbols. Some characters ...more...]]> 3 2 false false Fri Dec 26 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Aug 21 21:02:53 -0700 2008 Fri Dec 26 14:03:36 -0800 2008 1. Nearly everyone used foul language (although perhaps the future archaeologists won't know that it was foul language).
2. Nearly eve...more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Jun 11 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 05 14:10:20 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 11 16:33:06 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false true Wed Jul 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 03 19:47:47 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 20 09:30:20 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 2 false false Sun May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Sat Feb 02 18:32:46 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 02 18:34:42 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Wed Feb 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Dec 28 20:07:16 -0800 2007 Wed Feb 04 20:44:32 -0800 2009 1 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Sep 09 17:43:02 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 09 17:48:21 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Jun 16 18:27:28 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 16 18:30:11 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Jan 29 11:09:15 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 29 11:25:05 -0800 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=187020