Book Cafe: A Response to Empire Falls

I THOUGHT THIS book would be a light summer read, a perfect companion to the course on contemplation I was attending in Vancouver. It does start out that way, but Empire Falls is a sleeper. It’s the kind of book that starts out meandering its way through a handful of people’s lives, through their present and their past. It’s humourous and poignant. But as the narrative moves along, you begin to realize the book is more than anecdotal; something is being said.

Empires Falls is a small town in Maine that once thrived on the paper and textile mills, owned by the resident rich Whiting family. Free trade and globalization have closed the mills and the town is slowly dying. In the middle of a decaying downtown is the Empire Grill, owned by the power-brokering widow of the dwindling Whiting family, and managed by everyman Miles Roby. Miles gave up a college degree to return home to nurse his dying mother, and 20 years later he’s still there. In the midst of being divorced by his image-obsessed wife, Miles feels like life happens to him. It is from his vantage point behind the grill, in the midst of the town, that the story is told.

Miles isn’t the narrator, but somehow he’s the center of the book. At first, he seems like a washed-up, passive middle-aged guy, a kind of benevolent loser who doesn’t seem to have any goals, never gets angry and seems to coast. But Miles is thoughtful, and what at first appears as passivity reveals itself to be a kind of long-suffering. Through Miles’ working-class eyes, Richard Russo shares some wonderful insights into what makes life in North America meaningful. Miles realizes he’s never been in love with his wife, but his affection and patience with her incessant dissatisfaction with life is closer to love than her demand for romance and sex. Miles’ brother David is into his third sober year, after a potentially deadly collision with a tree left him with limited use of an arm, ending a lifetime of dissipation. Miles and David work together at the diner in a wary truce that could one day move into true friendship, but they can’t quite seem to extricate themselves from family history. Miles’ sixteen-year-old daughter Tick is dealing with first love, a jock/bully ex-boyfriend and the disillusionment of a mother who’s lost 50 pounds and any sense of substance along with it. Miles and Tick are close but strained as both are trying to figure out life after divorce. Miles’ father Max is a scoundrel in a way. In Miles’ childhood, Max was in and out, bouncing between his work as a painter and week-long binges at the bar. He wasn’t violent, just completely selfish and never apologetic. There is something likeable about Max because he is what he appears and never pretends anything. He doesn’t express remorse but sometimes extends himself. He is a cad, always trying to scam money to augment his pension, but he truly knows how to enjoy himself with others. Miles has a strangely positive relationship with Francine Whiting who owns the diner, most real estate in town and everyone’s hopes for the future. She is cold and calculating but somehow seems benign towards Miles. And Cindy, Francine’s crippled daughter, orbits Miles’ world with an insatiable crush on him. Miles navigates all these relationships in a fumbling but thoughtful way. Nothing is ever quite what it appears. He struggles with duty and resentment, freedom and obligation, delusion and the search for authenticity. He has a good heart, and an honest appraisal of himself, but can’t seem to make sense of his life.

One of the themes that courses through Empire Falls, like the river by the town, is that of personal destiny, of living your own life instead of someone else’s expectations. Every character has to face making compromises to what they sense is their authentic life, and in a sense the narrative plot is the collective consequences of these confrontations.This is the story of life in a small town, but on a deeper level Empire Falls shows us how ordinary lives make a difference, for good or bad, in other ordinary lives. Choice and consciousness mean the difference between tragedy and meaningful suffering. Nurturing compassion can allow us to observe seemingly banal situations and see the human hearts buried within them. Personal destiny doesn’t mean making it big or achieving goals. It comes to mean looking in the mirror and being able to live with the choices you’ve made. And most of all, personal destiny isn’t dictated by the past. History impacts us, shapes our lives, but we are always presented with opportunities to respond from our authentic hearts. This is a story about everyperson, about how the small things in life are never really that small. It’s a great read to open your heart.

Russo, Richard. Empire Falls. New York: Vintage Books, 2001. 483 pages.