Empire Falls: "Just beyond the factory and the mill..."

Well, folks, the "fiction addiction" continues unabated.

It's been two weeks since I finished reading two wonderful novels – The Godfather and Once An Eagle. On this rainy Saturday, I scamper over to the bookstore in our local community in search of another novel to read. This time I want something "hot off the presses" – and not just another sanguinary mobster saga or murder mystery or war epic. Perhaps a novel combining humor with poignancy; one that examines and comments upon our human condition.

It doesn't take me long to find exactly what I'm looking for: Empire Falls, a novel by Richard Russo. Just published in May 2001. And, as luck would have it, it’s a novel about Maine by a native Maine author!!

Welcome to Empire Falls, a fictional small town in the fictional county of Dexter, in the real live state of Maine. Empire Falls is very typical of the small mill towns nestled alongside Maine’s great rivers – the Kennebec, the Androscoggin, and the Penobscot. At river’s edge (the fictional Knox River), there’s the ubiquitous shirt factory and a textile mill, both long closed and boarded up, victims of the "new economy." Most of the small businesses along Empire Falls’ main street are likewise abandoned; plywood has replaced plate glass in most of the storefront windows.

Meet some of the people who live in Empire Falls: Miles Roby, the book’s protagonist... he’s a genuinely nice guy. Early forties; a college graduate, but a man without a great deal of ambition. He's soon to be divorced from Janine, his wife of twenty years. Miles is the proprietor of the Empire Grill, a little "greasy spoon" that he runs on behalf of Mrs. C.B. Whiting, the owner. He hopes to inherit the eatery when Mrs. Whiting dies...

Janine Roby, Miles’ "almost ex-," is trying hard to dump Miles as fast as she can. A "poster girl" for mid-life crisis, she’s taken up with another man, even before her divorce from Miles is final. Her soon-to-be second husband is Walt Comeau, the "Silver Fox," a sixty-year old local "swinger" who owns the town’s only fitness club. Since she and Walt have become an "item," Janine has dropped fifty or so pounds, rediscovered her libido, (something she thinks Miles has lost permanently), and has become hopelessly addicted to various forms of physical exercise...

Tick is Miles’ and Janine’s teenage daughter. Probably a borderline anorexic. Filled with teenage angst, but a source of comfort to many of her likewise angst-ridden high school friends. She lives with her mother, who she can’t stand, and spends most of her free time working at the Empire Grill with Miles and her uncle David.

Max Roby is Miles’ "sempty"-year old father – a real deadbeat, he thinks nothing of stealing money from Father Tom, the senile retired Catholic priest, or from his own son for that matter. Max, along with Walt Comeau, is one of the great thorns in Miles’ side.

Overseeing this cast of characters is Mrs. C.B. Whiting, the last in the line of fabulously wealthy, domineering Whitings that settled in Empire Falls and built the textile Mill and shirt factory. Mrs. Whiting, a septuagenarian, is as intellectually sharp and physically fit as ever. She tries to rule her self-proclaimed fiefdom with a "mailed fist inside a velvet glove..."

These and many other characters form part of the fabric of Empire Falls, a tiny dot on the central Maine landscape. A peaceful, bucolic little community comprised of the noble, the venal, the humble, the vain, the rich, the poor, the beggar, and the thief. A community soon to be tested by a sudden, unexpected, senseless act of violence...

When I bought this book, I did so because it was a story about Maine by a Maine author. I had never heard of Richard Russo, and Empire Falls is so new that there weren’t any critical reviews to tell me whether or not the book was worth buying. So, when I brought this 500-plus page novel home and began reading, I did so with a bit of skepticism and apprehension. Right from page one, however, Russo grabbed me and held my interest.

Empire Falls is definitely not an "action" novel. You’re not going to be bowled over by a riveting story line, or a well defined plot filled with thrilling escapades involving heroes and villians. No, this novel is instead a book that introduces the reader to a group of ordinary people with ordinary fears, anxieties, hopes, and aspirations. You get to walk along side them, sharing their struggles and frustrations; laughing with them when they find those tiny shreds of humor in their daily existence; commiserating with them in their sorrow, when tragedy strikes...

Two attributes of Empire Falls held my interest from first page to last: first, Russo writes with tremendous wit. Many of the scenes in Empire Falls are very funny indeed… not that "falling on the floor" funny, but witty, almost satirical. In some ways, very much like Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.

The second thing that held my interest is Russo’s accurate description of small town life in Maine. Russo’s descriptions of the town of Empire Falls – with its red brick mill buildings dominating the skyline; the old, dilapidated houses; the rusty cars meandering down Main Street; the rusty old iron bridge forming the town’s lifeline with the outside world – form powerful mental images of many of the towns in which I’ve actually lived, worked, and played. Russo’s characters bear a striking resemblance to many people with whom I’ve associated over the years.

My Verdict: Empire Falls is a wonderful novel... rich in detail, literate, alternately funny and tragic, and a powerful statement about small town life in America. I think it’s destined to become one of the enduring novels of our generation. Read and enjoy!!