July 25, 2010

Richard Russo's Empire Falls is the well-deserved recipient of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I, at first, wasn't looking forward to reading a 500 page novel about a small town in Maine. You can usually find me in the Fiction, Science section of the library, flipping through books with planets and spaceships on the cover. Or, if it is more of the Lord of the Rings type, orcs and elves and swords. A story about a small town in Maine doesn't fire up the imagination.

But Russo won me over and I was surprised to find myself gripping the paperback with both hands, leaning into the pages and watching Miles Roby's life slowly unfold.

What I discovered that is best about Russo is his ability to pencil in the details of his characters. He creates a fuzzy outline and steadily, fills it with color. What a character appears to be in the beginning is not always what they are in the end. And along the way, some of them even shock you.

There is Miles Roby, 42 year old manager of the Empire Grill, a struggling restaurant in a dying town. The question the book poses is, Why is Miles Roby still here, living in Empire Falls? He has the intelligence to realize his dream of becoming a professor (he never finished college, having rushed home to take care of his dying mother) but doesn't. He stays, marries a woman he doesn't love who eventually cheats on him, and lives a dissatisfying life. He has a tendency to be far too nice and people take advantage of him. Russo gives the impression that Miles is a weak, impotent man but towards the end, Miles surprises me and reveals himself to be a stronger man than I supposed.

Francine Whiting, owns half the town and for the last 20 years, has strung Miles along on the promise that she will turn over ownership of the Empire Grill to him. Why she tortures him with half hopes is a mystery Russo explores through Miles' memories of the past.

Janine Roby is the fiance of Walt Comeau (Owner of the local fitness center, who obnoxiously calls himself the Silver Fox) and soon to be ex-wife of Miles Roby. A somewhat self-absorbed woman, she struggles with her infidelity but rationalizes it away and ignores the growing reality that Walt is not all he appears to be.

Walt Comeau is, in fact, not as wealthy as he makes himself appear and is 60 years old, not 50 as he leads Janine to believe. His obnoxious personality is half entertaining and half maddening, which is something that creeps into several of Russo's characters. He has a habit of showing up to the Empire Grill and taunting Miles into arm wrestling him.

Max Roby is Miles' father and the ultimate narcissist. He is another half entertaining, half maddening personality. He pursues whatever he wants with such reckless abandonment for himself and others it's astounding. He consistently abandoned his wife to handle the bills and raise their sons, leaving for months at a time to paint houses on the coast. And now as a 70 year old man, his habits are the same. His primary passions being beer and money to buy beer. I can do no justice to the fascinating character Russo creates in Max Roby, except by saying this man is almost worth the read himself.

Finally, there is Christina (called Tick), Miles' daughter. Tick is one of Miles' few remaining passions in life. A high schooler, she has the regular struggles of a teenager dealing with sex, high school drama and love until John Voss shows up. What happens with him changes Empire Falls for good.

There are a dozen other characters I could mention but I just wanted to hit a few so I could cover the plot in its most basic form.

Russo manages to craft a way of speaking for each character that fits their personality so well. When they speak, you believe it is them speaking and when they act you believe that is exactly what that sort of person would do. It's a trick a lot of writers try but so few nail as well as Russo. And it's what makes a boring town like Empire Falls one the best reads of 2010 thus far.