I just reread Empire Falls in preparation for a discussion I was leading. I’ve decided it is one of my favorite books of all time. Richard Russo is masterful in depicting a range of human conditions. He is an expert at describing small towns and people’s connections to the places they call home. In this story, Miles Roby feels and acts stuck in Empire Falls. He never finished college since dropping out to care for his dying mother. He has been running the Empire Grill, owned by Mrs. Whiting, who controls the community, the Grill, and Miles. Miles is also going through a divorce and trying to remain an active parent to his high school daughter, Tick.
Miles is experiencing a midlife crisis, and his angst parallels that of the mill town in Maine at the beginning of the 2000s that is suffering from wanting to remain unchanged by technology and cultural progress. The river that divides his hometown and also conveniently separates the rich from the poor in Empire Falls has been altered for the convenience of the Whiting family and provides a backdrop for depicting diverse living conditions and humans’ desire for power and control over nature and each other. A quote that will remain with me is, “Men of vision had been improving upon God’s designs for the better part of two centuries, and there was no reason not to correct this one.” (p. 25).
Russo includes thought-provoking plot points related to municipal workers of Empire Falls. Jimmy Minty, the local cop and bully, has a long history with Miles and the Whiting family. Some of the behaviors of the school teachers and the high school principal are despicable. Miles’s connection with the Catholic church and the priests play a critical role in Miles’s inability to grow and move away from the provincial thinking of his family. All of these characters have multiple generation relationships with the power structure in Empire Falls and the steadiness of issues over time creates a metaphoric paralysis for many community members.
Miles is driven by fear and guilt. He regularly interacts with his ex-wife, her new lover, and members of the Whiting family, including Cindy Whiting, a woman who has been in love with him since high school. In descriptions of Miles’s ongoing relationships with his brother and father and flashbacks to his late mother, Russo develops some complex characters and appeals to one’s heartstrings. Following are some of the themes and concepts that gave me pause as the author alludes to them through the story’s plot and characters:
- Class bound fatalism
Confusion of past, present, and future
Corruption in business and time-honored institutions
Crippling conditions
Decency vs. passivity
Destiny
Duty to take care of those who need it.
Entrapment
Fate
Fear
Forgiveness: Who forgives in this story?
Free will
Guilt
Happiness: Does everyone deserve it?
Home: Is it a place?
Homophobia
Human nature
Ignorant Teachers
Jealousy
Loyalty: to family? Community?
Memories
Money: staying or moving from its source
Nature: Can it be controlled?
Overly responsible personality
Paralysis of mind and body
Parental dread
Pilgrimage
political influence: local
Power
Prejudice
Pride
Provincial life
Public nuisances
Redemption
Retribution
Religion
Rejection
Repression
Rivers
Safety
Self-preservation
Sexuality
Stereotypes
Small towns
Social hierarchy: Climbing the social ladder
Townies
Tradition
Uneducated thinking they have outsmarted the rich and educated
Unreconciled relationships
Weight: both concrete and figurative
