I can understand why a jury would have chosen it over THE CORRECTIONS. It's sometimes very grim in Empire Falls, but from the stance it's written, you can't help but to think it's inevitable and that's how you decide to live with dramas like this that will make the different. It's of equal scope and ambition than THE CORRECTIONS, but it's also a lot more tender.Where Franzen just wants you to read the truth about an American family, Russo is trying to make you see the beauty in the bigger picture. But when you read the last page, what you will remember is how Russo beautifully wrapped it up.
Everyday life is not always exciting, especially in an economically struggling town.
EMPIRE FALLS is a tremendous work of storytelling, but it can get coarse at times. Some short stories can be perfect, but very few niovels are and the longer your book is, the more you expose yourself to potential critics. That made her my favorite character of the novel and her face-offs with her mother Bea were my favorite passages. Now she finds herself beautiful, has a passionate sex life, but doesn't have much of an identity or any feeling of belonging. His wife Janine leaves him and everything that defined who she was before for a new image of herself. But his family life also reflects the passage of time and the really quick changes of early twenty-first century America. Miles is directly implicated in the municipal life of Empire Falls and whatever he does has implications on the others, like per se, hiring bullied kid John Voss to work for him. What makes this allegory so brilliant is that it's not so subtle. Richard Russo hides his in plain sight with so much subtly, sews every narrative threads together with invisible strings, he makes it such a pleasure to read. The breathtaking beauty of Miles Roby's story (because I did found it breathtaking) is that his life is an allegory for Empire Falls, which is an example of the casualties of the shift in values in America.
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