EMPIRE FALLS [Paperback]

Richard Russo (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: NY (1980)
• ASIN: B000N6QNNO
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (523 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

123 of 129 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful novel that will stay with you, January 16, 2004

By 

Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Empire Falls (Paperback)

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.

79 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Russo 's Poignant Tale of Small Town Life Is Rewarding Read, September 22, 2002

By 

Antoinette Klein (Hoover, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Empire Falls (Paperback)

This is my first novel by Richard Russo and I was captivated by his ability to breathe life into a diverse group of characters. From protagonist Miles Roby to his irascible father Max, his hauntingly sad mother Grace, his nemesis Mrs. Whiting, his touching daughter Tick, and many more, we are treated to people described so vividly they come to life and seem like the people we might know and want to either hang out with or avoid at all costs if we lived in Empire Falls.

There are too many plot lines to detail, but they all are brought together nicely and no reader is left with unanswered questions thanks to an interesting epilogue.

All the problems of seeking a better life but being relegated to the blue collar life of a mill town whose mill has long closed, are embodied in Miles Roby, reluctant proprietor of the town's grill. In the opening pages he sees his teen-age daughter Tick walking home from school with a hunched back weighed down by her symbolic backpack representing all the problems she faces---the dissolution of her parents marriage, a stepfather she despises, a widening emotional gap with her mother, the dreaded loss of friends and social standing, and being coupled with the school's most tortured and disturbed student.

The story moves slowly but the characters are so richly drawn you will be totally engrossed and hard pressed to put this one down. When the story does reach its climax, there are plenty of shocks and surprises and a realization that life is not perfect and its flaws are with us forever to either cope with or be overwhelmed by.

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Patient readers will be rewarded..., January 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Empire Falls (Paperback)

I will admit that about halfway through Empire Falls, I put it away for a few days. Although fascinating in its nuance and delightful in its humor, it was beginning to plod (so I thought) and I began to wonder whether it quite deserved the prestiguous prize on its cover.

Little did I realize the expertise of its author. He knows exactly what he's doing, bringing a complex tale to a slow boil. When the fever of rumination breaks toward the end, when something big really does happen, the reader is that much more taken by it because Russo has done more than introduce the characters--he has brought you into their lives, into their heads, and you genuinely care about their fate. Every one of the citizens in Empire Falls is a real, complex, believable person. At least once I had to remind myself that this heartbreaking tale, so vividly funny and genuinely tragic, is a work of fiction.

That Russo teases humor from sadness in such a natural, graceful way would make The Empire Falls a remarkable book. What makes it literature is its relevance, its reality, the fact that it might as well be a true story.