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EMPIRE FALLS

by Richard Russo ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 22, 2001

A little like Jon Hassler’s engaging Minnesota fiction and Thomas Williams’s New Hampshire–Gothic Whipple’s Castle—and very...

The life of a small southern-central Maine town is memorably laid bare in Russo’s splendid fifth novel—every bit as reader-friendly and satisfying as its predecessors ( Straight Man , 1997, etc.).

Not that Russo’s trademark wry humor isn’t everywhere present, especially in protagonist Miles Roby’s relations, friends, neighbors, and antagonists. Miles, generally considered “the nicest, saddest man in all of Empire Falls,” manages the Empire Grill for widowed plutocrat Francine Whiting (who may/may not bequeath it to him). He’s barely scraping by in an economically challenged community that was once the thriving site of the Whitings’ logging and textile mill “empire.” And he’s watching his teenaged daughter Christina (“Tick”) painstakingly mature, while also laboring to keep emotional distance from a host of brilliantly sketched seriocomic characters. These latter include Miles’s intemperate “soon-to-be-ex-wife” Janine and her aging fiancé, the annoyingly hearty “Silver Fox” Walt Comeau; Miles’s old high-school friend and enemy, hard-nosed cop Jimmy Minty; his one-armed brother (and reputed marijuana grower) David; and especially his widowed father Max, a senile delinquent who’s eternally on the make and cadging “loans” (mostly from Miles). Russo’s genius for loosely episodic storytelling hasn’t faded, but here it’s expertly yoked to several smartly paced parallel plots, whose origins and ramifications are spelled out in extended italicized flashbacks (as well as in a moving explanatory epilogue)—and focus in turn on the unhappy marriage and early death of Miles’s beautiful mother Grace, the slow-burning fuse that is Tick’s nerdy classmate John Voss (whose loneliness triggers the story’s heart-tugging climax), and the skeletons carefully hidden in the Whiting mansion’s many closets.

Pub Date: May 22, 2001

ISBN: 0-679-43247-7

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001

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by Richard Russo

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PERSPECTIVES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah ( The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

More by Kristin Hannah

by Kristin Hannah

by John Steinbeck ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 24, 1947

Steinbeck's peculiarly intense simplicity of technique is admirably displayed in this vignette — a simple, tragic tale of Mexican little people, a story retold by the pearl divers of a fishing hamlet until it has the quality of folk legend. A young couple content with the humble living allowed them by the syndicate which controls the sale of the mediocre pearls ordinarily found, find their happiness shattered when their baby boy is stung by a scorpion. They dare brave the terrors of a foreign doctor, only to be turned away when all they can offer in payment is spurned. Then comes the miracle. Kino find a great pearl. The future looks bright again. The baby is responding to the treatment his mother had given. But with the pearl, evil enters the hearts of men:- ambition beyond his station emboldens Kino to turn down the price offered by the dealers- he determines to go to the capital for a better market; the doctor, hearing of the pearl, plants the seed of doubt and superstition, endangering the child's life, so that he may get his rake-off; the neighbors and the strangers turn against Kino, burn his hut, ransack his premises, attack him in the dark — and when he kills, in defense, trail him to the mountain hiding place- and kill the child. Then- and then only- does he concede defeat. In sorrow and humility, he returns with his Juana to the ways of his people; the pearl is thrown into the sea.... A parable, this, with no attempt to add to its simple pattern.

Pub Date: Nov. 24, 1947

ISBN: 0140187383

Page Count: 132

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1947

More by John Steinbeck

by John Steinbeck & edited by Thomas E. Barden

by John Steinbeck & edited by Robert DeMott

by John Steinbeck & edited by Susan Shillinglaw & Jackson J. Benson

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Book Reviews

Empire Falls by Richard Russo: Book Review

I have an affiliate relationship with  Bookshop.org  and  Malaprop's Bookstore  in beautiful Asheville, NC. I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase merchandise through links on my site. Read more on my  affiliate page .

Miles Roby is the manager of The Empire Grill in the heart of Empire Falls, Maine–or what’s left of it, anyway. This once-thriving industrial town is dying now that the factories have all closed. Empire Falls still has a tightly-knit, optimistic community though. There are constantly rumors about new buyers for the factories. Miles feels as if he’s the only skeptic, watching from behind his counter as his town is slowly sinking.

I’m finding this to be a really hard review to write. That’s because as I read the book, I didn’t really feel like I was reading fiction. It seems like a new factory closes somewhere in my area weekly (not really, but it’s not been great) and these characters felt like neighbors. None of them are perfect, and they’re all struggling with things that we can relate to. I feel like I’m trying to write a review of small-town, blue-collar American life, and that’s not something that I review, that’s just something that we live.

And I guess that I couldn’t really give Russo a higher compliment than that. Sure, there are things that I didn’t necessarily enjoy, but when a book is so spot-on that you feel like you’re reading about the next town over, there’s not much else to say.

There were times when I laughed (Father Tom and Max Roby were always good for that), there were times when I was a little heart-broken, there were times when I felt victorious, and there were times when I was beyond horrified. I really did not see the stuff at the end coming. It was one of those things that always happens “somewhere else,” so when I had lost myself enough to feel that I was a part of Empire Falls, it was shocking that it happened “right here at home.”

I really like Miles and his daughter, Tick, but they weren’t perfect by any means. They were funny and doing their best. Miles adores Tick and would do anything for her. I never knew quite what to think of Mrs. Whiting, the rich old woman who practically owns the whole town. She came across as heartless because she really was, but she also saw with a clarity that few of us possess. I have to give her credit for saying what she thinks. Otto Meyer was another character that I really liked, but I wish he’d had a bigger part. I like the way the relationships between characters were constantly shifting, the way they actually do in real life. I liked how Miles’ relationship with his mother is echoed in his relationship with Tick.

There was at least one big revelation that I saw coming from a long way off. I obviously didn’t see everything coming though, or I wouldn’t have been shocked at the end.

I recommend this if you’re in the mood for a good look at life in a small, dying town. I’ve made it sound depressing, but that constant thread of hope never quite fades away.

Read an excerpt .

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I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop’s , my local independent bookstore located in downtown Asheville, NC; and Better World Books . I will receive a small commission at no cost to you if you purchase books through links on my site.

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EMPIRE FALLS

Richard russo, empire fallsrichard russo

Reviewed on: 04/09/2001

Genre: Fiction

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Empire Falls

Richard Russo | 4.07 | 107,824 ratings and reviews

Ranked #33 in Pulitzer Prize

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PROLOGUE Empire Falls By RICHARD RUSSO Knopf Read the Review Compared to the Whiting mansion in town, the house Charles Beaumont Whiting built a decade after his return to Maine was modest. By every other standard of Empire Falls, where most single-family homes cost well under seventy-five thousand dollars, his was palatial, with five bedrooms, five full baths, and a detached artist's studio. C. B. Whiting had spent several formative years in old Mexico, and the house he built, appearances be damned, was a mission-style hacienda. He even had the bricks specially textured and painted tan to resemble adobe. A damn-fool house to build in central Maine, people said, though they didn't say it to him. Like all Whiting males, C.B. was a short man who disliked drawing attention to the fact, so the low-slung Spanish architecture suited him to a T. The furniture was of the sort used in model homes and trailers to give the impression of spaciousness; this optical illusion worked well enough except on those occasions when large people came to visit, and then the effect was that of a lavish dollhouse. The hacienda—as C. B. Whiting always referred to it—was built on a tract of land the family had owned for several generations. The first Whitings of Dexter County had been in the logging business, and they'd gradually acquired most of the land on both sides of the Knox River so they could keep an eye on what floated by on its way to the ocean, some fifty miles to the southeast. By the time C. B. Whiting was born, Maine had been wired for electricity, and the river, dammed below Empire Falls at Fairhaven, had lost much of its primal significance. The forestry industry had moved farther north and west, and the Whiting family had branched out into textiles and paper and clothing manufacture. Though the river was no longer required for power, part of C. B. Whiting's birthright was a vestigial belief that it was his duty to keep his eye on it, so when the time came to build his house, he selected a site just above the falls and across the Iron Bridge from Empire Falls, then a thriving community of men and women employed in the various mills and factories of the Whiting empire. Once the land was cleared and his house built, C.B. would be able to see his shirt factory and his textile mill through the trees in winter, which, in mid-Maine, was most of the year. His paper mill was located a couple miles upstream, but its large smokestack billowed plumes of smoke, sometimes white and sometimes black, that he could see from his back patio. By moving across the river, C. B. Whiting became the first of his clan to acknowledge the virtue of establishing a distance from the people who generated their wealth. The family mansion in Empire Falls, a huge Georgian affair, built early in the previous century, offered fieldstone fireplaces in every bedroom and a formal dining room whose oak table could accommodate upwards of thirty guests beneath half a dozen glittering chandeliers that had been transported by rail from Boston. It was a house built to inspire both awe and loyalty among the Irish, Polish and Italian immigrants who came north from Boston, and among the French Canadians, who came south, all of them in search of work. The old Whiting mansion was located right in the center of town, one block from the shirt factory and two from the textile mill, built there on purpose, if you could believe it, by Whiting men who worked fourteen-hour days, walked home for their noon meal and then returned to the factory, often staying far into the night. As a boy, C.B. had enjoyed living in the Whiting mansion. His mother complained constantly that it was old, drafty and inconvenient to the country club, to the lake house, to the highway that led south to Boston, where she preferred to shop. But with its extensive, shady grounds and its numerous oddly shaped rooms, it was a fine place to grow up in. His father, Honus Whiting, loved the place too, especially that only Whitings had ever lived there. Honus's own father, Elijah Whiting, then in his late eighties, still lived in the carriage house out back with his ill-tempered wife. Whiting men had a lot in common, including the fact that they invariably married women who made their lives a misery. C.B.'s father had fared better in this respect than most of his forebears, but still resented his wife for her low opinion of himself, of the Whiting mansion, of Empire Falls, of the entire backward state of Maine, to which she felt herself cruelly exiled from Boston. The lovely wrought iron gates and fencing that had been brought all the way from New York to mark the perimeter of the estate were to her the walls of her prison, and every time she observed this, Honus reminded her that he held the key to those gates and would let her out at any time. If she wanted to go back to Boston so damn bad, she should just do it. He said this knowing full well she wouldn't, for it was the particular curse of the Whiting men that their wives remained loyal to them out of spite. By the time their son was born, though, Honus Whiting was beginning to understand and privately share his wife's opinion, as least as it pertained to Empire Falls. As the town mushroomed during the last half of the nineteenth century, the Whiting estate gradually was surrounded by the homes of mill workers, and of late the attitude of the people doing the surrounding seemed increasingly resentful. The Whitings had traditionally attempted to appease their employees each summer by throwing gala socials on the family grounds, but it seemed to Honus Whiting that many of the people who attended these events anymore were singularly ungrateful for the free food and drink and music, some of them regarding the mansion itself with hooded expressions that suggested their hearts wouldn't be broken if it burned to the ground. Perhaps because of this unspoken but growing animosity, C. B. Whiting had been sent away, first to prep school, then to college. Afterward he'd spent the better part of a decade traveling, first with his mother in Europe (which was much more to that good woman's liking than Maine) and then later on his own in Mexico (which was much more to his liking than Europe, where there'd been too much to learn and appreciate). While many European men towered over him, those in Mexico were shorter, and C. B. Whiting especially admired that they were dreamers who felt no urgency about bringing their dreams to fruition. But his father, who was paying for his son's globe-trotting, finally decided his heir should return home and start contributing to the family fortune instead of squandering as much as he could south of the border. Charles Beaumont Whiting was by then in his late twenties, and his father was coming to the reluctant conclusion that his only real talent was for spending money, though the young man claimed to be painting and writing poetry as well. Time to put an end to both, at least in the old man's view. Honus Whiting was fast approaching his sixtieth birthday, and though glad he'd been able to indulge his son, he now realized he'd let it go on too long and that the boy's education in the family businesses he would one day inherit was long overdue. Honus himself had begun in the shirt factory, then moved over to the textile mill, and finally, when old Elijah had lost his mind one day and tried to kill his wife with a shovel, took over the paper mill upriver. Honus wanted his son to be prepared for the inevitable day when he, too, would lose his marbles and assault Charles's mother with whatever weapon came to hand. Europe had not improved her opinion of himself, of Empire Falls or of Maine, as he had hoped it might. In his experience people were seldom happier for having learned what they were missing, and all Europe had done for his wife was encourage her natural inclination toward bitter and invidious comparison. For his part, Charles Beaumont Whiting, sent away from home as a boy when he would've preferred to stay, now had no more desire to return from Mexico than his mother had to return from Europe, but when summoned he sighed and did as he was told, much as he always had done. It wasn't as if he hadn't known that the end of his youth would arrive, taking with it his travels, his painting and his poetry. There was never any question that Whiting and Sons Enterprises would one day devolve to him, and while it occurred to him that returning to Empire Falls and taking over the family businesses might be a violation of his personal destiny as an artist, there didn't seem to be any help for it. One day, when he sensed the summons growing near, he tried to put down in words what he felt to be his own best nature and how wrong it would be to thwart his true calling. His idea was to share these thoughts with his father, but what he'd written sounded a lot like his poetry, vague and unconvincing even to him, and he ended up throwing the letter away. For one thing he wasn't sure his father, a practical man, would concede that anybody had a nature to begin with; and if you did, it was probably your duty either to deny it or to whip it into shape, show it who was boss. During his last months of freedom in Mexico, C.B. lay on the beach and argued the point with his father in his imagination, argued it over and over, losing every time, so when the summons finally came he was too worn out to resist. He returned home determined to do his best but fearing that he'd left his real self and all that he was capable of in Mexico. What he discovered was that violating his own best nature wasn't nearly as unpleasant or difficult as he'd imagined. In fact, looking around Empire Falls, he got the distinct impression that people did it every day. And if you had to violate your destiny, doing so as a Whiting male wasn't so bad. To his surprise he also discovered that it was possible to be good at what you had little interest in, just as it had been possible to be bad at something, whether painting or poetry, that you cared about a great deal. While the shirt factory held no attraction for him, he demonstrated something like an aptitude for running it, for understanding the underlying causes of what went wrong and knowing instinctively how to fix the problem. He was also fond of his father and marveled at the little man's energy, his quick anger, his refusal to knuckle under, his conviction that he was always right, his ability to justify whatever course of action he ultimately chose. Here was a man who was either in total harmony with his nature or had beaten it into perfect submission. Charles Beaumont Whiting was never sure which, and probably it didn't matter; either way the old man was worth emulating. Still, it was clear to C. B. Whiting that his father and grandfather had enjoyed the best of what Whiting and Sons Enterprises had to offer. The times were changing, and neither the shirt factory, nor the textile mill, nor the paper mill upriver was as profitable as all once had been. Over the last two decades there had been attempts to unionize all the factories in Dexter County, and while these efforts failed—this being Maine, not Massachusetts—even Honus Whiting agreed that keeping the unions out had proved almost as costly as letting them in would've been. The workers, slow to accept defeat, were both sullen and unproductive when they returned to their jobs. Honus Whiting had intended, of course, for his son to take up residence in the Whiting mansion as soon as he took a wife and old Elijah saw fit to quit the earth, but a decade after C.B. abandoned Mexico, neither of these events had come to pass. C. B. Whiting, something of a ladies' man in his warm, sunny youth, seemed to lose his sex drive in frosty Maine and slipped into an unintended celibacy, though he sometimes imagined his best self still carnally frolicking in the Yucatan. Perhaps he was frightened by the sheer prospect of matrimony, of marrying a girl he would one day want to murder. Elijah Whiting, now nearing one hundred, had not succeeded in killing his wife with the shovel, nor had he recovered from the disappointment. The two of them still lived in the carriage house, old Elijah clinging to his misery and his bitter wife clinging to him. He seemed, the old man's doctor observed, to be dying from within, the surest sign of which was an almost biblical flatulence. He'd been turning the air green inside the carriage house for many years now, but all the tests showed that the old fossil's heart remained strong, and Honus realized it might be several years more before he could make room for his son by moving into the carriage house himself. After all, it would require a good year to air out even if the old man died tomorrow. Besides which, Honus's own wife had already made clear her intention never to move into the carriage house, and she lately had become so depressed by the idea of dying in Maine that he'd been forced to buy her a small rowhouse in Boston's Back Bay, where she claimed to have grown up, which of course was untrue. South Boston was where Honus had found her, and where he would have left her, too, if he'd had any sense. At any rate, when Charles came to him one day and announced his intention to build a house of his own and to put the river between it and Empire Falls, he understood and even approved. Only later, when the house was revealed to be a hacienda, did he fear that the boy might be writing poems again. Not to worry. Earlier that year, C. B. Whiting had been mistaken for his father on the street, and that same evening, when he studied himself in the mirror, he saw why. His hair was beginning to silver, and there was a certain terrier-like ferocity in his eyes that he hadn't noticed before. Of the younger man who had wanted to live and die in Mexico and dream and paint and write poetry there was now little evidence. And last spring when his father had suggested that he run not only the shirt factory but also the textile mill, instead of feeling trapped by the inevitability of the rest of his life, he found himself almost happy to be coming more completely into his birthright. Men had starting calling him C.B. instead of Charles, and he liked the sound of it. (C) 2001 Richard Russo All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-679-43247-7

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Reading guide for Empire Falls by Richard Russo

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Empire Falls

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• First Published:
• May 1, 2001, 512 pages
• Apr 2002, 512 pages
• Literary Fiction
• New England, USA
• N.H. Vt. Maine
• Contemporary
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Reading Guide Questions

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

• Richard Russo's description of town of Empire Falls is as memorable and vivid as his portraits of the people who live there. How do the details he provides about the town's setting and its streets, buildings and neighborhoods create more than a physical backdrop against which the story is played out? How does the use of flashbacks strengthen the sense of the town as a "living" character?
• "One of the good things about small towns, Miles's mother had always maintained, was that they accommodated just about everyone" [p. 21]. Is this an accurate description of Empire Falls? Which characters in particular benefit from this attitude? What influences the level of tolerance Miles is willing to extend to Max Roby, Walt Comeau and Jimmy Minty, all of whom are constant irritants to him? What does he see as the redeeming characteristics of each of them?
• Why is his relationship with Tick so important to Miles? In what ways is it reminiscent of his mother's attachment to him? How do Grace's expectations for Miles, as well as her ultimate disappointment in him, shape the way he is raising Tick?
• Even before the full story of Grace and Max's marriage is revealed, what hints are there that Grace was less than the ideal wife and mother Miles remembers and reveres? Why does Miles choose to accept his mother's version of events of their trip to Martha's Vineyard, even though it entails a betrayal of his father [pp. 136-47]? When Miles finally realizes who Charlie Mayne really is, does it change his feelings about Grace in a significant way? Would he have felt differently if Grace were still alive and able to answer his questions [pp.338-9]? How does Miles's own situation--particularly his separation from Janine and his discovery of the relationship between Charlene and David--color his reaction to his mother's affair? How does his brief conversation with Max about Grace and Charlie [p. 373] shed light on the relationship between father and son?
• Janine calls Miles "The World's Most Transparent Man" [p. 42] and Tick says, "It's not like you don't have any [secrets] . . . It's just that everybody figures them out" [p. 107]. Does Mrs. Whiting share this image of Miles? What evidence is there that she sees and understands more about the "real" Miles than the people closest to him do?
• How does Russo use minor characters to fill out his portraits of the main figures? What roles do Horace Weymouth, Bea Majeski, Charlene and Otto Meyer play in shaping your impressions of and opinions about Miles, Janine and Tick?
• How do David's feelings about Mrs. Whiting and the Empire Grill differ from Miles's? Whose attitude is more realistic? Is David's harsh criticism of Miles's passivity [pp. 224-5] justified? What insights does it give you into David's character? Is David more content with his life than Miles is with his own, and if so, why?
• Charlene tells Miles: "David has this theory that between your mom and dad and him and you there's, like, one complete person" [p. 226]. Has each member of the family selected a particular role, or has it been thrust upon him or her? Is the division of roles a natural part of family life? Which member of the Roby family is the "most complete," and what sacrifices did he or she make to establish a strong individual identity?
• What does Father Mark offer Miles that he cannot get from his other relationships? Is Miles drawn to him only because he is a priest? Why does Russo depict both priests as flawed men--Father Mark by his sexual longings and Father Tom by his dementia? How would you characterize the impact of Catholicism on Miles and Grace? Does attending church genuinely comfort them, or is it a convenient way of hiding from the problems in their lives and the decisions they have made? In what ways do Grace's confession to Father Tom and the penance he demands affect her character and her outlook on life?
• Why does Tick befriend John Voss? How does her sense of responsibility for him compare to Miles's feelings--both when he's a child and a grown man--about Cindy Whiting? Are the differences attributable to the circumstances that bring each pair together, or do they reflect something deeper about Tick's and Miles's morality and their ability to empathize with other people? What other incidents demonstrate Tick's understanding of what other people need? Why is she unable to treat Janine in the same comfortable, nonjudgmental way she treats Miles and Max Roby?
• Would you define Mrs. Whiting as a mother figure for Miles? Does she perceive herself in this way? Does Miles? Beneath their very different personas, what traits do Mrs. Whiting and Grace share? Do they represent strengths and weaknesses usually associated with women? In what ways does Mrs. Whiting's description of her relationship with Grace [p. 435] reaffirm their similarities? Which woman is more honest with herself about her motivations and feelings?
• All of the marriages in Empire Falls fail in one way or another. Does your sense of who is responsible for each marital breakdown change as the events of the past and present unfold? Discuss the contrast between the way each of these marriages is initially described and the "real" stories: Grace and Max; Mr. and Mrs. Whiting; Miles and Janine. Mrs. Whiting says "Most people . . . marry the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. For reasons so absurd they can't even remember what they were a few short months after they've pledged themselves forever" [p. 169]. How does this assessment apply to the marriages mentioned above?
• From the almost unimaginable cruelty of John Voss's parents to Mrs. Whiting's coldness toward Cindy, to Grace's emotional withdrawal from David (and to some extent Miles) when she joins the Whiting household, the novel contains several examples of the emotional and physical harm parents inflict on their children. Why do you think Russo made this a central theme of the book? Does it adequately explain, or even justify, behavior you would otherwise find completely unacceptable?
• Empire Falls traces three very different families--the Whitings, the Robys, and the Mintys--through several generations. What do each of these families represent in terms of American society in general? How do their fates embody the economic and social changes that have occurred over the last century? To what extent are the members of the current generation trapped by the past?
• What does Empire Falls provide that its residents might not be able to find in another town or city? Does living in a small town necessarily limit the satisfactions people get out of life? Miles says, "After all, what was the whole wide world but a place for people to yearn for their hearts' impossible desires, for those desires to become entrenched in defiance of logic, plausibility, and even the passage of time?" [p. 295]. Is he right? Which characters might have had better, more fulfilling lives if they had moved away from?
• In contemplating the past year, Tick says, "Just because things happen slow doesn't mean you'll be ready for them. If they happened fast, you'd be alert for all kinds of suddenness. . . "Slow" works on an altogether different principle, on the deceptive impression that there's plenty of time to prepare" [p. 441]. How does this relate to the novel as a whole and the way it is structured? Why has Russo chosen Tick to express this insight?
• What adjectives would you use to describe Empire Falls ? How does Russo make the story of a dying town (with more than its share of losers) entertaining and engaging? Did you find most, if not all, of the characters sympathetic in some way?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Vintage. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.

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Empire Falls

61 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue and Part 1, Chapters 1-8

Part 2, Chapters 9-14

Part 3, Chapters 15-22

Part 4, Chapters 23-32 and Epilogue

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Summary and Study Guide

In Empire Falls , published in 2001, award-winning author Richard Russo focuses his sharp observations on family, faith, and hope for the future in small-town America, where the factories have left, the populations are dwindling, and the prospects are shrinking. Miles Roby almost got out of Empire Falls, but his mother’s illness brought him back a semester shy of graduating college. Now he runs the Empire Grill, a landmark that still anchors the dying town, and takes care of his daughter, Tick. His soon-to-be ex-wife Janine is about to remarry, while Miles is harassed by a small-minded cop and the whims of his patron, Mrs. Whiting, whose wealth controls the town. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize and made into a Golden Globe-winning mini-series starring Ed Harris and Helen Hunt, Empire Falls showcases the trials and tribulations of a middle-aged man traversing life in middle America. All quotations in this guide come from the First Vintage Contemporaries Edition, published in 2002.

Plot Summary

Miles Roby works at the Empire Grill, fending off inane challenges from his soon-to-be ex-wife Janine’s new paramour, Walt Comeau (a.k.a. the Silver Fox) and worrying about his teenage daughter, Tick. At 42, Miles has settled into middle age with little fanfare or fuss, and others see him as reliable, steady, and—in the case of Janine—boring. Yet, underneath the surface, Miles harbors his own set of dreams and secret regrets.

He and his daughter Tick have just returned from a short vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, where Miles’s college friends own a summer house. He would love to buy property there—Tick loves it, as did Miles’s mother Grace when she was alive—but he cannot afford it, as his brother reminds him. His brother, David, also works at the Empire Grill. He is skeptical that Mrs. Whiting, owner of not only the Empire Grill but also most of Empire Falls itself, will actually turn the restaurant over to Miles as she has implicitly promised. Even if Mrs. Whiting eventually allowed Miles to buy her out, the Grill hasn’t reliably turned a profit in years.

Meanwhile, Miles’s father, Max, a ne’er-do-well former housepainter, constantly bothers Miles for money—which Miles is fully aware his father will drink away. Max pesters Miles to let him help paint St. Catherine’s, the church that meant so much to Grace. Miles has volunteered his services to his friend, Father Mark, which Max cannot seem to grasp; the idea of working for free is beyond his capacity to imagine. In school, Tick struggles to make friends, having broken it off with the popular but arrogant bully, Zack Minty. Still, she enjoys her art class, seated amongst other students on the lower rungs of the high school social ladder. John Voss, in particular, is designed to attract the unwelcome attention of Zack and his athlete friends. Tick’s mother, Janine, obsesses over her newly thin body, having shed fifty-plus pounds, while Tick can barely bring herself to eat. Janine is also focused on starting her new life with the Silver Fox, who excites her physically even if he isn’t the most intellectually stimulating partner one could find.

Miles returns from his vacation in a somber mood , thinking over the many roads not taken. He remembers his first trip to the island, taken with his mother when he was a boy of nine. Max did not accompany them on the trip, which Miles finds odd, but he enjoys his special time with Grace—even if their lack of money sometimes feels awkward. While there, his mother meets an older gentleman, Charlie Mayne. Miles suspects that something inappropriate is going on between the two of them, but when they leave the island, his mother assures him, bitterly, that nothing will change. Only after seeing an old photo in the local newspaper decades later does Miles figure out that Charlie Mayne was, in fact, C. B. Whiting, one time scion of the Whiting textile empire and husband of his patron Mrs. Whiting.

This knocks Miles into a tailspin, undoing all of his assumptions about his life and his mother’s life. His mother worked for Mrs. Whiting, caring for her disabled daughter, Cindy, after the suicide of C. B. Whiting. Miles now questions if this was Grace’s penance for the affair. He even wonders if this is why Mrs. Whiting lured Miles back to Empire Falls to work at the restaurant. He decides to throw in his lot—secretly, of course—with Bea, his former mother-in-law, and re-open the kitchen at her tavern, Callahan’s. He has decided to leave the Empire Grill, Mrs. Whiting, and his unpleasant memories behind for good.

Mrs. Whiting doesn’t remain ignorant of events unfolding in Empire Falls, and the health inspectors close down Callahan’s. When Miles goes to confront Mrs. Whiting, he is met instead by Jimmy Minty, local police officer and freelance enforcer who, like his son, is a bully. They engage in a brutal physical altercation, a confrontation that has been brewing since childhood, and Miles is taken to the hospital. Afterwards, it is expected he will be transferred to the jail.

Before he can fully heal or be transferred, Miles is confronted with the most disturbing news a parent could possibly receive: There has been a shooting at the high school. The police chief takes him to the scene, where his daughter has witnessed the shooting but has not been physically harmed. John Voss—the victim of horrific abuse at the hands of his parents—has unleashed his pent-up rage at fellow students and teachers. Three are killed. Miles carries Tick out of the classroom and flees to Martha’s Vineyard. It takes months for her to begin to heal, during which time Miles communicates with nobody other than his brother.

Finally, David urges him to come back to Empire Falls: the old textile factory has been sold to a development company, and the gentrification of what had been a dying town has begun. Miles communes with the spirit of Charlie Mayne, who tells him his mother’s death is his fault—that she and Charlie could have run away together had it not been for Miles. He sobs, reverting to the guilt-ridden boy he had once been. But when he awakens from this trance, he realizes that he must grow up: “It was time to return to Empire Falls” (472).

When he goes back to the summer house where he and Tick have been staying, he learns that Mrs. Whiting has died, drowned in the annual floods that arose, so many years ago, when her husband decided to reroute the river. Miles begins the journey home.

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Book Review: Empire Falls by Richard Russo (4/5)

Way back in 2013, I had a Page-a-Day Book calendar. I got a huge number of recommendations from that thing and it kick-started by Goodreads TBR and is very responsible for how long the thing now is. This title was one of those recommendations and part of me wishes I still had it so I could read the blurb that convinced me to add it to my TBR and later buy it from a used book store. Thanks to my readers who picked it on WWW Wednesday as my next book!

Cover Image via Goodreads

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Summary from Goodreads:

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.

In a rough sense, this book reminded me of The Casual Vacancy . The story is about a whole town and the people have their own stories and their own quirks. The difference here is how much each story overlapped with the others. For example, Otto overlapped with Tick and Miles. I liked that there was a true focus on the Roby family which gave me a rallying point and helped me ignore plotlines that would turn out to be unimportant. I thought it was very well done.

I liked the depiction of small-town life. Janine was particularly despicable which made her fun. I loved hating her and Walt. I adored Tick and her struggles and how she dealt with them. They were each well developed and very different which is important and refreshing in a novel of this structure. I liked that we saw a lot of different backgrounds and ages in the book and got to see the problems they had individually and as a group.

Tick was my favorite. I liked her sass and I understood where it came from. She obviously blamed her mother for the divorce and for expelling her beloved father from her life. Honestly, how could you not blame Jenine? I didn’t think she redeemed herself and I don’t think she ever will. Tick tried to avoid the problems, a very appropriate response given her age and I liked that Russo didn’t try to make her feel older than she was.

I think Tick’s story was really relatable and that was part of why I enjoyed it. I haven’t been a parent, drunkard, or grandparent so the other narrating characters were less relatable to me. I wasn’t a popular kid in high school, either. Somehow, I landed a cute boyfriend who was condescending and rude. It was oddly parallel and I’m glad Tick was strong and made new friends, even trying to reach out to someone who needed help. Her heart was in the right place.

Richard Russo Image from Authors Guild

I know this is terrible, but reading Jenine and Walt’s marriage fall apart was oddly satisfying. I disliked her character so much that seeing her find out how he was being untruthful about his age and money was great. He was good in bed, but that was about it. Jenine was so quick to judge everyone that it backfired on her.

The ending bothered me a bit so I want to talk about it. Skip this paragraph to avoid spoilers. A lot went into building up John Voss as an outsider but the ending seemed too predictable. I would have liked to see Tick get into his head, his world, a little bit more before he fell apart. It seems like he had some kind of break but we don’t see it and it’s hard to imagine how it was triggered without knowing him better. He’s one character I would have liked to get into a bit more.

More spoilers here! This book was published in 2001, two years after the Columbine High School shootings. I feel fairly sure that Russo was thinking about that tragedy when he was writing this book. How could someone in a small town become so angry that they would do something so violent? We’re lead through a world where John Voss becomes that person. It’s scary to see it happen and it makes it obvious how small actions can lead to someone choosing that path.

Writer’s Takeaway: On the surface, this seems like a book that would have too many characters but Russo handles them well. We really focused on the Whitings, Mintys, and Robys. Of course, other characters come into play, but always in a way that links them between these major characters. This helped the book maintain focus while telling a story about a town and not a person. I think this is a hard balance to strike and Russo does an amazing job.

I enjoyed the book and the characters a lot. I’d read another Russo book to be sure. Four out of Five Stars.

Until next time, write on.

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Related Posts: Richard Russo- Empire Falls | The Pulitzer Project Empire Falls by Richard Russo | Book Club Mom Empire Falls | Just Browsing

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4 Responses to “Book Review: Empire Falls by Richard Russo (4/5)”

I love this book and most of his others. As you said, he has a knack for describing life in a small town.

Good to hear! I’ll have to keep an eye out for another of his books in the future. Happy reading!

I agree with your conclusions Russo does a fantastic job balancing such a large cast. Event the town ends up feeling like one of his characters. I appreciate the development in his books. Great review!

Thank you! I get nervous with big casts but you can tell he’s an experienced writer. Happy reading!

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