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Empire Falls
Despite this being a 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner, I didn't consider reading this for myself until it was held up as an example in this writing book. I finally picked it up after a conversation with a What Should I Read Next guest pushed me over the edge. This story about a blue-collar town whose best days are behind it wasn't at all what I expected—especially the ending. I would love to talk this one over with a good book club.
About the Book
Publisher’s description:
Welcome to Empire Falls, a blue-collar town full of abandoned mills whose citizens surround themselves with the comforts and feuds provided by lifelong friends and neighbors and who find humor and hope in the most unlikely places, in this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Richard Russo.
Miles Roby has been slinging burgers at the Empire Grill for 20 years, a job that cost him his college education and much of his self-respect. What keeps him there? It could be his bright, sensitive daughter Tick, who needs all his help surviving the local high school. Or maybe it’s Janine, Miles’ soon-to-be ex-wife, who’s taken up with a noxiously vain health-club proprietor. Or perhaps it’s the imperious Francine Whiting, who owns everything in town–and seems to believe that “everything” includes Miles himself. In Empire Falls Richard Russo delves deep into the blue-collar heart of America in a work that overflows with hilarity, heartache, and grace.
Empire Falls was also adapted into an HBO mini-series, starring Paul Newman, Ed Harris, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Helen Hunt.
Other books in "Literary Tourism: Maine"
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