Subscribe to Read | $0.00
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Read Anywhere and on Any Device!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
I am sad when a Richard Russo book ends. I could keep reading about his characters forever. This was his debut novel written in 1986. Russo is truly one of the great American writers, his stories about small town America are so warm and real.
Having read all his other books, Mohawk bears similarity to several though far less engaging. Russo has the folksy tone necessary to tell small town stories, and this one bears the hallmarks of the Pulitzer winner, Empire Falls, though the over use of back story dampens the pace. Focused on the Mather family, we meet an array of characters including Wild Bill who hangs out at the Mohawk Grill for handouts. Russo always interjects humor with characters like these to offset themes of loss, redempt...
I always enjoy reading the debut novels of authors whose later works I really enjoy, and this one was no different. In terms of enjoyability, it's nowhere near the level of pure brilliance of Empire Falls, the comedy of Straight Man or the eerie drama of Bridge of Sighs, but when you've read as much Russo as I have (this is my 6th novel of his), it's interesting to see where some of these other works come from. Some of those standard Russo trademarks are there, the dying industrial town, the loc...
Sometimes I wonder why I don't read Richard Russo all day, every day. He makes it look so easy, the sense of place, the flawed, human characters, the driving plot where in many ways nothing happens yet you keep turning the pages. If you like small-town novels, read this immediately. If you don't like small-town novels, read this to see what you're missing.
I want to give this 5 stars because I enjoyed reading it that much. However, it seemed to be missing that something extra I want a 5-star book to have. Russo reflects on his characters, even when his characters are not especially introspective. I like that. The plot was a bit forced though, or convenient perhaps - probably because this was Russo's debut. He had a very strong theme in the early going and seemed to lose the strength of it about three-quarters through. It's hard to fault him for th...
Like Kent Haruf, Richard Russo writes of small town America with engaging and quirky characters. He has a good command of detail that places you in the scene and is a masterful story teller.
Mohawk is only my second Richard Russo novel. It felt familiar though, as it's very similar to Everybody's Fool with its myriad of characters, small-town setting and domesticity.It gave me that feeling you get when coming across an old friend you lost contact with, but when you meet again the spark reignites as you had never been apart.The characters are as varied as they come - a diner owner, retired men and their wives, a beautiful woman who married the wrong guy and who is in love with her co...
Richard Russo is really good at writing about everyday American life, and I loved his “Empire Falls”. The same goes for this book which is set in Mohawk, a town in America where everyone seems to know each other in some way or another. Russo zooms in on the characters among whom are Harry working in a grill, Anne living at home with her parents together with her son as well as Dallas, a riotous man who doesn’t seem to be able to get his life together. However, this one wasn’t amongst my favourit...
This was Russo's first book and it shows. Richard Russo is one of the best authors that I have run across in my short stint of a life. His narrative has a high-caliber voice that seeks the nostalgia within the reader and steadily draws it out. He's got a knack for craft that most contemporary authors are lacking. His stories offer a steady structure and a very unique as well as entertaining balancing act of numerous characters.With that said, I think Mohawk is the weakest of the novels. There ar...
This is one of Russo's earlier novels. It's a little slow moving and less interesting than more recent works. I know I did enjoy it, though I can't recall too much of the plot now. I read it after reading Empire Falls, and as I recall, the two books had a lot of similarity as far as place and plot and character interaction. Russo's always got some good words of wisdom tucked into his novels. Here's a tidbit I copied from Mohawk: "Attempts to make life do what it has resisted doing in the past ar...
My sixth Russo. Mohawk was his first novel, 1986, and the story goes back to the days of the Vietnam war and the draft. With two murders and a suicide, it may be his darkest novel. Like most of Russo’s novels, we have a dying small town in the northeast which lies mostly on the wrong side of the tracks, and seriously flawed folks, blue- and pink-collar workers, living on the economic margin. There’s also the environmental theme of cancers caused by the factories – in this case pollution dumped f...
The author’s debut novel. An engaging, sometimes humorous novel set in Mohawk, an upstate New York mill town in decline. The novel features two families, the Grouses and the Gaffneys. Mather Grouse and Rory Gaffney are long time enemies. There is good plot momentum with an eventful ending!Readers new to Richard Russo should firstly read the highly recommended ‘Empire Falls’ or ‘Nobody’s Fool’. Russo fans should find this book a satisfying reading experience.This book was first published in 1986....
