Understanding Richard Russo by Drowne Kathleen;

Author:Drowne, Kathleen;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
Published: 2014-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

Empire Falls

When Richard Russo’s fans ask him how much of what he portrays in his books is actually true, he replies, “All of it. But some of it, I made up.”1 In the case of Empire Falls (2001), his fifth novel and the winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the author certainly draws on truths from his own childhood in Gloversville, New York; his experiences living in Waterville, a small Maine town not unlike the fictional Empire Falls; and parenting two daughters who were teenagers when their father was writing this novel. The parts that Russo “made up”—the details, histories, and daily lives of the Robys, the Whitings, and the other families who live and work in Empire Falls—converge to tell a story that includes several elements familiar to readers of other Russo novels. The major characters in Empire Falls are regular people working regular jobs, seeking happiness within the boundaries of their dilapidated mill town, and trying to come to terms with being abandoned by the industries that once supported the local economy. About his penchant for blue-collar, “everyman” characters, Russo explains, “I’ve always been interested in ordinary people swept up in economic and political forces they can’t begin to comprehend, as well as in the changing face of American labor. Becoming a writer has only deepened my sympathies for working people, who are always, it seems to me, the first to be sold out.”2 So, like Mohawk, The Risk Pool, and Nobody’s Fool, Empire Falls explores the lives of everyday people struggling to eke out livings and maintain some hope for their futures in a town darkened by boarded-up factories and limited opportunity.

Empire Falls is an expansive novel—not as long as Bridge of Sighs but with a larger cast of characters. It primarily follows the Roby family, longtime residents of Empire Falls, Maine, through three generations. Miles Roby, the forty-two-year-old manager of the Empire Grill and the protagonist of the novel, is separated from his wife, Janine, who has taken up with the obnoxious owner of a local fitness club. Their daughter, Tick, is a bright high school sophomore struggling to deal with her parents’ separation as well as the heartbreaking challenges of trying to fit in with the high school social scene. Miles’s father, Max, an amiable layabout who periodically abandoned the family during Miles’s youth, schemes relentlessly for the cash he needs to get to Key West, Florida, where, he maintains, he can drink beer and enjoy the company of women who appreciate him. Miles’s brother David, whose arm was badly injured in a car accident, helps him run the diner, and Charlene, the waitress whom Miles has loved (unrequitedly) since he was a teenager, waits tables. An inherently decent and goodhearted man, Miles struggles to overcome his inertia and to cope with the guilt he still feels for betraying his late mother’s deepest wish: for him to leave Empire Falls behind and start a new life.

At the same time, the novel details the history of the town of Empire Falls and its wealthy ruling family, the Whitings.

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