I recommend this if you’re in the mood for a good look at life in a small, dying town. I obviously didn’t see everything coming though, or I wouldn’t have been shocked at the end. There was at least one big revelation that I saw coming from a long way off. I liked how Miles’ relationship with his mother is echoed in his relationship with Tick. I like the way the relationships between characters were constantly shifting, the way they actually do in real life. Otto Meyer was another character that I really liked, but I wish he’d had a bigger part. I have to give her credit for saying what she thinks. She came across as heartless because she really was, but she also saw with a clarity that few of us possess. Whiting, the rich old woman who practically owns the whole town. Miles adores Tick and would do anything for her. I really like Miles and his daughter, Tick, but they weren’t perfect by any means. It was one of those things that always happens “somewhere else,” so when I had lost myself enough to feel that I was a part of Empire Falls, it was shocking that it happened “right here at home.” I really did not see the stuff at the end coming.
There were times when I laughed (Father Tom and Max Roby were always good for that), there were times when I was a little heart-broken, there were times when I felt victorious, and there were times when I was beyond horrified. Sure, there are things that I didn’t necessarily enjoy, but when a book is so spot-on that you feel like you’re reading about the next town over, there’s not much else to say. I feel like I’m trying to write a review of small-town, blue-collar American life, and that’s not something that I review, that’s just something that we live.Īnd I guess that I couldn’t really give Russo a higher compliment than that. None of them are perfect, and they’re all struggling with things that we can relate to. It seems like a new factory closes somewhere in my area weekly (not really, but it’s not been great) and these characters felt like neighbors. That’s because as I read the book, I didn’t really feel like I was reading fiction. I’m finding this to be a really hard review to write. Miles feels as if he’s the only skeptic, watching from behind his counter as his town is slowly sinking. There are constantly rumors about new buyers for the factories.
Empire Falls still has a tightly-knit, optimistic community though. This once-thriving industrial town is dying now that the factories have all closed. Miles Roby is the manager of The Empire Grill in the heart of Empire Falls, Maine–or what’s left of it, anyway.
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