If Richard Russo seemed to be peaking in the '90s with Nobody's Fool (made into a film starring Paul Newman) and The Straight Man, nobody told him. His fifth book, Empire Falls, is his most ambitious work yet (the word "epic" has been used). And protagonist Miles Roby is his best good guy yet.
Russo breathes real life into his characters, creating these sentient little ink beings that come scampering off the page as flawed and real as a red-nosed old guy bubbling in Lotto forms with a chewed-up pencil.
The story centers on Roby and the aptly named Empire Falls, a dying river town still owned (psychologically and financially) by the Whitings, even though they've sold off the textile factory and mill that employed most of the citizens. Roby has just returned to work after a short vacation in Cape Cod to find his old neighbor, a cop, watching him closely; the cop's jock-douche-bag son is still pursuing Roby's reluctant daughter, who has befriended the troubled mute kid in her art class; and his brother may or may not be growing pot. Then there's the town's mother hen, Francine Whiting, whose weird hold on everything includes ownership of the diner Miles Roby has been running since he dropped out of college. His drunk, "sempty"-year-old dad has once again stolen cash from him, and thanks to an aging gym rat who calls himself The Silver Fox, Mrs. Roby has cuckolded Miles.
In short, he's a mess, and so is his town. Intelligence and humor help him grapple with the chaos he's awash in — till along comes a coffee-stained newspaper and an epiphany so life-changing that Roby may find a way out — or at least the guts to paint that church steeple he's afraid to climb.
If you read one book this year, make sure it's the Bible.
Just kidding. Make sure it's Empire Falls.
—Dave Jasper
This article appears in Aug 2-8, 2001.
