Literary Fiction · WarmA man who has spent his life at the Empire Grill in a fading Maine mill town
Empire Falls
A short-order cook in a declining Maine mill town cannot bring himself to leave
Miles Roby has worked as a short-order cook at the Empire Grill for two decades, a job that cost him his college education and much of his self-worth. His town is a struggling mill town of shuttered factories. He stays for his perceptive teenage daughter, Tick, who needs his support at school, for his soon-to-be ex-wife, Janine, who has taken up with a vain gym owner, and because Francine Whiting, the domineering woman who controls much of the town, acts as if Miles belongs to her too. Funny and rueful, the novel finds humor in hardship.
More about this book
Who
Miles Roby, who runs the Empire Grill. Family obligations pulled him home from college and he never left. His mother is ill, his father is unpredictable, he is going through a divorce and he worries about his younger brother. His daughter Tick is an adolescent he raises with care. Mrs. Whiting, the widow who presides over the once-large Whiting holdings, is his partner in the struggling grill.
World
Empire Falls, a fictional town in Dexter County, Maine, whose logging and textile businesses have failed one after another.
What makes it different
Russo's books often depict small-town life in the northeastern United States, and this novel sets Miles's family troubles against the long decline of his town.
Feel
Funny and rueful. It won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was adapted for the screen.