I suspect that most people reading this review do NOT live in the hometown where they were born. You didn’t marry your high school sweetheart and/or, going on forty, you’re not still secretly in love with an old sweetheart who still lives in town. You don’t live in a couple of sleazy rooms above the diner you run. Your ex-alcoholic brother and your borderline anorexic teen-aged daughter don’t flip burgers and wait tables for you. Your ex-wife’s new husband doesn’t hang out drinking coffee at the...

coup de foudre = A sudden unexpected event, especially an emotional one; love at first sight. The reviews that I find the most difficult to write are not the negative or even the glowing ones, but the ones about books that that may be not the best written or the best plotted but touch me on a personal level, the ones that strike close to my inner core. I haven’t read any other novel by Richard Russo, but starting on Empire Falls felt like going to a party where you don’t know anybody, starting...

I’ve really fallen in love with the characters in this one.To me, the most difficult thing to do in literature is develop a character. Character-driven novels are a gamble because if they are not handled correctly, they can crash and burn before they’ve taken off. Plot-driven novels are a safer bet, but then you’d miss out on an opportunity to really provoke your reader. I liked Empire Falls primarily because of how real Miles and Max and Mrs. Whiting, etc. felt to me.This book encompasses what

Big novel about a little place in Maine. The town is in decline and the novel presents numerous characters and plots and overtells most of them, rather than let everyone speak for himself or circumstances to reveal meaning, the author piles on the evidence and looks in on character’s thinking without revealing their complexity. If scenes don’t repeat themselves, what they represent about the characters or fate of the town and its people do. Too much of the storytelling is pedestrian, though Russ...

This is a wonderful book! It follows the every day lives of the residents of Empire Falls, a small town in Maine, that has seen better days. I loved the ‘setting the scenes’ chapter at the beginning of the book, showing the town in a more prosperous time when the mill and shirt factory were open and employment was high.Now Miles manages the Empire Grill restaurant. He has a uncomfortable relationship with the matriarch of Empire Falls founding family, Mrs Whiting, who is also the owner of Empire...

"Lives are rivers. We imagine we can direct their paths, though in the end there’s but one destination, and we end up being true to ourselves only because we have no choice. People speak of selfishness, but that’s another folly, because of course there’s no such thing."I’ve been pondering this quote for some time now after having finished Richard Russo’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Empire Falls. Is it true that we have no choice in where our lives take us? Do we only perceive that we have choi...

In this past year of reading I’ve found it easy to get through a book quickly, decide whether I enjoyed it or not, and move on to the next book in the infinite pile. Most books I’ll read in a week or so, and I approach my leisure time in a workman-like manner: it is relaxation time, but it also follows a pretty regular schedule. Rare are the books that cause me to slow down and delay finishing a novel simply to prolong the enjoyment provided by its reading. Empire Falls is that type of book. It

Bittersweet story about everyday life in a small town, or so it seems. I have to admit that I was a little bored at the beginning of it (the prologue was a little dry, in my opinion), but once I got into the present-day scenario, Russo gradually brought the storyline to a powerful culmination and held my interest to the end.

This was a book my brother really enjoyed and recommended to me as recently as this summer. So it went on my list. :o)My brother passed away on October 9, 2007. Today (well, since it's after midnight, technically, yesterday) is his birthday, so it seems fitting that I've finally gotten around to posting this review today. When I finish a book, I find I kind of have to let things simmer in my brain a bit before I can really parse out all my reactions to it. I’m not sure why, but this one took me

2.5 Stars Empire Falls by Richard Russo is a story about relationships and life in a small town called Empire Falls in Maine.The stroy is extremely well written and the characters are very well developed. I felt at times I was looking in the windows of the characters homes and watching them live life on a daily basis. The relationship between the characters was so well portrayed and a wonderful sense of time and place comes across in the novel. Having said that I still just found the Novel O

I really enjoyed Nobody’s Fool and the follow-up Everybody’s Fool. Russo introduced me to a delicious group of characters inhabiting a small town in upstate New York. Lots happened but at the same time nothing much happened – I guess what I’m saying is that all of the happenings were small ones, which seemed to suit the setting and the cast admirably. So the question for me was could he do it again? This time the setting is a small town in New England, once dominated by a shirt factory establi...

The small Maine town of Empire Falls has seen better days.  The local and once booming timber and textile industries have run their course and all that remains is the abandoned and decrepit real estate of what once was.  The blue collar workers of this small New England community struggle to find the few jobs remaining that allow them to keep the wolf at the door and food on the table, ever hopeful of revitalized opportunities. And it is here that we meet Miles Roby, manager of The Empire Grill....

I came to this book in a unique way. I read that Paul Newman had read this book and called Richard Russo and said, "I want to do this movie." I've always loved Paul Newman and respected his opinion. I picked up the book and loved it. The book clicks along as a character story until the end where it takes a wicked turn which I didn't see coming. The writing is smooth and economic, the characters are real and easy to get to know. But most of all the author created the near perfect "Fictive Dream,"...

This was my first taste of Richard Russo's wonderful prose and lifelike characters. The book follows the lives of Miles Roby and his family in the dying industrial town of Empire Falls, Maine. The town itself is beautifully described throughout as the book transpires over a school year - Miles' daughter Tick's senior year at Empire High. I really loved how Russo writes dialog (both exterior and interior) and his sense of humor and irony. Most of the time, I felt like I was sitting in the Empire

Now and then, you find a book which manages to enthrall you so deeply that you simply know you will return to it over and over again, perhaps to embrace the writing style, perhaps to meet these characters again or perhaps to simply let yourself be immersed by the wonderful atmosphere of that specific book."Empire Falls" is such a book. I loved every single page of this book, and yet I know there are readers who would rip this book apart, saying things like "nothing ever happens" or "where is the...

This is a great American novel, following the intertwined lives of the residents of Empire Falls, Maine. Empire Falls is a declining mill town, lorded over by the baronial Whiting clan. It covers several generations, focusing mostly on the present day and recalling the past. Like all small towns, this is one with secrets, good guys and bad, but all the characters are drawn richly, with respect. There is wisdom here, perception and blindness, short joys and long regrets. This is a book that sings...

Empire Falls, Maine is a town that’s best days are long behind it. The mill and factory that used to be the main employers have been closed for years, and the only person around with two dimes to rub together is the very rich Francine Whiting who essentially owns and controls everything worth having in the area. Miles Robey was on the verge of earning his college degree and escaping Empire Falls forever when he returned home to care for his dying mother and ended up working for Mrs. Whiting as t...