"Empire Falls" by Richard Russo

"Empire Falls" By Richard Russo

At first Empire Falls was a tough book to get into. I had a hard time following the book. Empire Falls had a lot of different stories with in itself. When I read the prologue of Empire Falls I thought the story was going to slowly unfold the life story of a man named C.B. Whiting. Instead the book told a life story about a man named Miles Roby. Miles was the son of Max and Grace Roby. Eventually toward the end I figured out that Miles had a connection with C.B. Whiting.

There were quite a bit of themes that made the book contemporary fiction. Some of the themes were the main character was going through a divorce and was spoken of frequently through out the book, a school shooting, Miles's daughter had an eating disorder that lead to anorexic, and a credit card company moved into town and took over several small businesses.

One of the other themes of the book I thought was loss and love. There were several events of loss and love through out the book Miles had lost his wife to another man, his mother to cancer and C.B. Whiting had taken his own life. C. B. wasn't spoken of through out the book much when his name was mentioned it was always about the person that committed suicide years ago in Empire Falls.

Miles was a manager and a short order cook at the Empire Grill which was owned by Mrs. Whiting. Mrs. Whiting had owned a great deal of the town. Miles was a very generous man he was always there to help when needed. Miles volunteered his spare time to paint the church he attended. Miles also hired a boy by the name of John Voss...