The Small Town Strikes Back: The Book List

In Empire Falls, when art teacher Mrs. Roderigue asks her least favorite student, Tick Roby (daughter of main character Miles Roby), to describe the artistic style of Bill Taylor (a TV artist who is partly based on the late Bob Ross), Tick knows that she should not respond as she does: “Fast,” she says, when she knows that a word like “sublime” would be more up Mrs. Roderigue’s alley. Already disliked by the teacher, Tick feels her stock plummet further after the answer.

If I were to be asked for a word to describe the style of Richard Russo’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, I would, indeed, answer with: “Sublime.”

A marvelous, breathtaking novel is how I would expand on the word “sublime.” Intelligent, witty, compassionate and intricate would be other describers. A work of true art: the novel holds together wonderfully, lacing together plot and subplots intricately, that when you step back to view the whole, you are astounded by how complete the novel is. How it is able to hit on every emotional high and low in life, all the while introducing the reader to fully-formed, complex characters who you can identify and empathize with; from the undignified cruelties of high school to the backbreaking despair of the road not taken, the novel amazingly covers the breadth of life in one small town, a town that has seen better days.

The novel tells the story of Miles Roby, manager of the Empire Grill, a man going through a divorce and thrust into reassessing his life as lived to this point—his mother’s illness when he was a college senior forced him to return to Empire Falls, where he stayed, married and had one daughter. The owner of the Empire Grill (and indeed, most of Empire Falls) is Francine Whiting, widow of C.B. Whiting, the scion of the family that built the now-closed factories and decaying town into a now-gone prosperity. Mrs. Whiting has supposedly willed the Empire Grill to Miles, but given her penchant and natural ability for spinning deals solely to her advantage, a will once changed can be changed again, and that is no guarantee for Miles. Given the way Mrs. Whiting operates the Empire Grill and her relationship with Miles, the reader and Miles begin to wonder if there’s more to this arrangement than meets the eye.

And of course there is, and Russo is brilliant as he unfolds the relationships between the Robys and the Whitings, among the citizens of the town, and the interconnectedness that exists within any small town, either prosperous or declining. As all the subplots and characters began to converge, a reader marvel’s at Russo’s ability to link everything together in a seemingly flawless way that’s also comedic, sobering and entertaining—the skill Russo demonstrates here left me floored. His ability to let a reader discover and revel in these characters and relationships is not something that is easily managed, but yet it’s there and so effortlessly presented. The novel and all its components flowed together in a way that is, again, sublime.

A definite recommend. And thanks to IP for helping me with the title of this post.

Onto the book list:

Finished:

1) Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman
2) Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work by Tim Gunn and Ada Calhoun
3) Beneath the Lion’s Gaze: A Novel by Maaza Mengiste
4) Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
5) Destiny and Desire: A Novel by Carlos Fuentes; Translated by Edith Grossman
6) The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
7) Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard
8) Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
9) The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir
10) Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
11) The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
12) Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Re-read:

1) Threads by Nell Gavin

Currently Reading:

1) Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach

Waiting To Be Read (Already Purchased, Got as Gifts, Borrowed from My Husband or Otherwise Accessible without the Use of Funds, But Not an Assurance That I Will Read These Before I Buy More Books):

1) The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman
2) The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
3) One of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde
4) Next by James Hynes