Mohawk (Paperback)

by Richard Russo (Author) "The back door to the Mohawk Grill opens on an alley it shares with the junior high..." (more)
Key Phrases: bowling machine, Mather Grouse, Wild Bill, Rory Gaffney (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The town of Mohawk may be provincial but it's far from sleepy. Its inhabitants seem perpetually awake, and not only on Saturday at two in the morning, "when the bars are closing and people are forced to consider the prospect of returning home with so many of the night's dreams unfulfilled." Richard Russo focuses on several characters who are leading lives of extreme--and extremely funny--longing. Dallas Younger, for instance, hit his peak playing high-school football, and it's been downhill from there. He has no idea what women, particularly his ex-wife, are thinking, which makes him really glad there are none in on the local poker game. And he's still at a loss to figure out why he has no relationship with his son (probably something to do with the fact that he never sees him). Even the calendar at the local grill is for 1966, since the owner figures "the months are the same" and being a few days out of whack doesn't matter. This same man has a private betting system. Choosing among the top jockeys isn't that hard--he tries to assess their current levels of pride, concentration, and desire. Richard Russo shows us that these same qualities exist in his hard-luck characters.

Review
"Moving dramatizes an older, innocent way of life...brisk, colorful, and often witty."

-- The New York Times Book Review

Mohawk, New York, is one of those small towns that lie almost entirely on the wrong side of the tracks. Its citizens, too, have fallen on hard times. Dallas Younger, a star athlete in high school, now drifts from tavern to poker game, losing money, and, inevitably, another set of false teeth. His ex-wife, Anne, is stuck in a losing battle with her mother over the care of her sick father. And their son, Randall, is deliberately neglecting his school work -- because in a place like Mohawk it doesn't pay to be too smart.

In Mohawk Richard Russo explores these lives with profound compassion and flint-hard wit. Out of derailed ambitions and old loves, secret hatreds and communal myths, he has created a richly plotted, densely populated, and wonderfully written novel that captures every nuance of America's backyard. -- Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (April 12, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679753826
• ISBN-13: 978-0679753827
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #229,400 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Sign of Things to Come, January 24, 2003

By	mrliteral - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

With his Pulitzer Prize winning and best selling novel Empire Falls, Richard Russo has become a well-known author. In Mohawk, his first novel, we see, if somewhat imperfectly, the writer he would become.

Like his other novels, Mohawk is the story of a small town in the northeastern part of the U.S. The town - in this case Mohawk - is a place on the wane as the industry that fueled it peters out. In this story, we follow the adventures of Dallas Younger, his ex-wife Anne and their son Randall in the late '60s and early '70s. Dallas lives a life of general irresponsibility and likes it that way. Anne pines away for her cousin's husband, a wheelchair-bound man who she sleeps with every twenty years or so. Randall has his own issues to deal with including his efforts to evade the draft.

As with Russo's other stories, the characters are more important than the plot, and he is able to make them compelling enough that we want to keep reading. Compared with his other novels, this one is rather serious, although there is some humor.

This novel is good but not as great as his other books; in a way, this book is like an exhibition game before the regular season; we get a general feel for what Russo does but it is still just warming up. For example, in Dallas, we see the prototype for the deeper Sully in Nobody's Fool. Other elements of this story are revisited in his other stories.

I would recommend this book, but don't judge Russo by this story. He's just getting warmed up here.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Four and 1/2 stars..., August 7, 2005

By	Cynthia K. Robertson (beverly, new jersey USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Mohawk (Hardcover)

Richard Russo has become one of my favorite novelists, and Mohawk is one of the best books I've read this summer. I would have given it five stars had it not been a little slow going at the beginning.

Like most Russo books, Mohawk is a little short on plot, but very strong on characterization and relationships. Mohawk, New York is a leather manufacturing town whose best days are long gone. The residents of Mohawk also seem to have their best days behind them, with many shattered and unfulfilled dreams. Mohawk centers around two first cousins, Anne Younger and Diane Wood, and their families. Anne has always been in love with Diane's husband, Dan. Dan is a paraplegic as the result of an accident. Anne's ne'er-do-well husband, Dallas, never seems to do right by the people he loves. Anna's son, Randall, starts slacking in school as he seems more accepted when his grades start sliding. Diane's mother has a hissy fit and needs to be hospitalized every time she doesn't get her on way. Anne's mother tortures both Anne and her father. And Mather Grouse (Anna's father) lives his life by a moral code that affects everyone in his family. Mohawk is a book of unlikely heroes as people try to make right of the past.

Russo is a master of observation and turns this talent into an art form. Some of those that touched a nerve include:

When discussing dealing with her husband, "Mrs. Grouse had come to see virtually everything he enjoyed as a potential source of upset. She seemed intent on making his remaining years one long Lenten season."

"the most effective lies were those liberally laced with truth. The lie could be ninety-nine parts truth to one part falsehood, one tarnished part mingling with the pure until it was all tainted, more false than pure fabrication."

Mather Grouse "certainly understood how perversely loyal human beings could be to mistakes."

Unfortunately, Russo is not as prolific as other writers, although perhaps that is what makes his books so special. I've already read Straight Man, Empire Falls and Nobody's Fool. So I guess I'll just have to content myself with going back and reading some of his earlier works instead.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Waxing the hyperbole ..., March 21, 2000

By	:) "chuckamok" (Bellevue, WA USA) - See all my reviews

Well, here goes ... I am an educated man, vis a vis the arts. Humbly, I am able to deconstruct Hyden, Mozart, Bach. I have studied art (and am, again, humbly, a craftsman myself) to be able to understand the brushwork, composition, and lighting of Monet, Hopper, Inness. But I'll be damned if I can begin to comprehend how a genius novelist is able to do what he does. Richard Russo is in the company of John Steinbeck, Wallace Stegner, Charles Dickens. Geez, I've FINALLY gotten around to reading "Mohawk", after marvelling at "Nobody's Fool" and "The Risk Pool". Folks: here is the greatest living American author. I'm gonna blanch at all this when I sober up, but here it is: do yourself a BIG favor, read Richard Russo.