If this book hadn’t been a selection for our book group, I probably wouldn’t have made it past the first couple chapters. Russo has a way with words that we don’t see very often anymore, but I just wish he’d write more interesting characters.
And his father…what a jerk! I have to admit, though, that the writing really was very good. I really wanted to see him stand up for himself long before the scene at the mill with Francine. Miles, even though he’s a good guy at heart, is a sap. In Empire Falls, his fifth published novel, Russo adds yet another volume on small town life to what might be called his rust belt sagaa careful examination of the colorful people who. I found the characters rather boring and unlikable in print. I want my books to be fun and mysterious, not gutwrenching and disturbing, although I can occasionally enjoy a good wrencher, like In Cold Blood, which I recently re-read. As I’ve grown older, I have really come to dislike books and movies that are all about people suffering. I liked Empire Falls, but I really didn’t love it like *some* people I know. This is one time where I found the movie more engaging than the book. 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. The working classes, meanwhile, continue to eke out whatever meager promise isn’t already boarded up. 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.
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.
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