Book Review - Empire Falls by Richard Russo

This book is part of the reading challenge initiated by the list-obsessed blogger at Rose City Reader. The challenge was to choose 3 books in 3 different categories - one that won both the National Book Award & the Pulitzer, one that won the Pulitzer and one that won the National Book Award. I previously reviewed my National Book Award winner, Sophie's Choice, here. This time I'm reviewing my Pulitzer Prize winner.

Cover of Empire Falls

Synopsis: Dexter County, Maine, and specifically the town of Empire Falls, has seen better days, & for decades, in fact, only a succession from bad to worse. One by one, its logging & textile enterprises have gone belly-up, & 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 & future life. Called back from college & 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 & proudly through the tribulations of adolescence.

A decent man encircled by history & dreams, by echoing churches & abandoned mills, by the comforts & feuds provided by lifelong friends & neighbors, Miles is also a patient, knowing guide to the rich, hardscrabble nature of Empire Falls: fathers & sons & daughters, living & dead, rich & poor alike.

First Line: "Compared to the Whiting mansion in town, the house Charles Beaumont Whiting built a decade after his return to Maine was modest."

Random Quote: "Having tended bar for forty years, Bea had watched several thousand ball games she had no interest in, only to discover at this late date that she halfway enjoyed. & she'd come to believe life was like that: you could enjoy almost anything if you gave it enough time."

Review: I'm ambivalent about this book, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction for 2002. On the one hand the writing is skillful & has a rambling, easy quality that's admirable & a pleasure to read. On the other hand not a lot happens until the final 50 pages of the book whe

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

n the author unaccountably (& almost literally) blows everything up for no apparent reason. On the one hand there are some wonderfully written characters here, particularly Tick - one of the most effective portraits of an adolescent that I've read in recent fiction. On the other hand there are also some dreadfully caricatured people who never rise beyond their cardboard cutout outlines - Janine, Tick's mother comes immediately to mind.

This book is deeply satisfying when Russo focuses on his characters & their relationship to each other & to this dying small town & its history. It is deeply disappointing when he strays into sensationalist ripped from the headlines territory. The ways that it is deeply satisfying make the ways that it disappoints that much more disappointing, of course.

Having said all of that, I'm glad I read it & I enjoyed large chunks of this enormously. I'll definitely look for more of his work.