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Empire Falls

Premio Pulitzer 2002

by Richard Russo

ISBN: 0679432477
ISBN-13: 9780679432470
Format: Hardcover

Summary

In Richard Russo's lengthy fifth novel-this one set in a small Maine town-the Empire Grill provides the focus for the town's inhabitants, who include Miles Roby, who manages the place; Francine Whiting, the wealthy woman who owns it; Jimmy the cop; and Miles's large, eccentric, and often comic extended family. Many plots intertwine as the townsfolk are revealed in all their odd vulnerability, and Miles surveys them all from behind the counter of the grill. A New York Times Notable Book for 2001.

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Media Reviews

"[A] rich, humorous, elegantly constructed novel rooted in the bedrock tradition of American fiction. Needless to say, this is easily Mr. Russo's most seductive book thus far....It's about the price of reconciling dreams with disappointment, and the many unexpected ways of finding salvation....This book works like a prism, regarding the same people and events from different perspectives until they are finally, deeply understood."    -- Janet Maslin

   -- New York Times

"Russo gives us a panoramic yet nuanced view of the imaginary town of Empire Falls, Maine, showing how the history of one powerful family can become the history of a place. It's the kind of big, sprawling, leisurely novel, full of subplots and vividly drawn secondary characters, that people are always complaining is an endangered species. Yet in part thanks to Russo's deft satiric touch-much of the book is laugh-out-loud funny-it never feels too slow or old-fashioned."    -- Maria Russo

   -- Salon

"Russo's command of his story is unerring, but his manner is so unassuming that his mastery is easy to miss. He satisfies every expectation without lapsing into predictability....By the end of this novel, you'll know the town's geography like a native, and its tattered landmarks...will be as vivid and as charged with metaphor as Salem's house of seven gables or the mansions of East Egg. You will also have had the good fortune to tour this unremarkable geography in the company of an amiable, witty raconteur....[Russo is] one of the best novelists around."    -- A. O. Scott

   -- New York Times Book Review

"[Russo's] belief in the power of comedy-sometimes low, sometimes high-rescues his work from bathos and elevates it into the realm of literature."

   -- New Yorker

Bibliographic Details

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
Published date: 2001
Size: 6.5 x 9.5 inches
Weight: 1.8 pounds
Pages: 483

Publisher's Notes

Richard Russo—from his first novel, Mohawk, to his most recent, Straight Man—has demonstrated a peerless affinity for the human tragicomedy, and with this stunning new novel he extends even further his claims on the small-town, blue-collar heart of the country.

Dexter County, Maine, and specifically the town of Empire Falls, has seen better days, and for decades, in fact, only a succession from bad to worse. One by one, its logging and textile enterprises have gone belly-up, and the once vast holdings of the Whiting clan (presided over by the last scion’s widow) now mostly amount to decrepit real estate. The working classes, meanwhile, continue to eke out whatever meager promise isn’t already boarded up.

Miles Roby gazes over this ruined kingdom from the Empire Grill, an opportunity of his youth that has become the albatross of his daily and future life. Called back from college and set to work by family obligations—his mother ailing, his father a loose cannon—Miles never left home again. Even so, his own obligations are manifold: a pending divorce; a troubled younger brother; and, not least, a peculiar partnership in the failing grill with none other than Mrs. Whiting. All of these, though, are offset by his daughter, Tick, whom he guides gently and proudly through the tribulations of adolescence.

A decent man encircled by history and dreams, by echoing churches and abandoned mills, by the comforts and feuds provided by lifelong friends and neighbors, Miles is also a patient, knowing guide to the rich, hardscrabble nature of Empire Falls: fathers and sons and daughters, living and dead, rich and poor alike. Shot through with the mysteries of generations and the shattering visitations of the nation at large, it is a social novel of panoramic ambition, yet at the same time achingly personal. In the end, Empire Falls reveals our worst and best instincts, both our most appalling nightmares and our simplest hopes, with all the vision, grace and humanity of truly epic storytelling.

Other Editions

Hardcover - Random House Inc (2001) - from $1.00
Paperback - Random House Inc (2002) - from $1.00

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Empire Falls: Premio Pulitzer 2002

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