[home] [news] [this year's award] [publishers] [libraries] [award archive] [faqs] [dublin city public libraries] [IMPAC] [contact us]
|
The
2003 Award
|
|
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Nominated by:
|
Publisher of Nominated Editions: Chatto & Windus 0701162007 : A A. Knopf 0679432477 |
| the complete A-Z listing of nominated authors. |
|
ABOUT
THE BOOK
|
| Dexter
County, Maine, and specifically the town of Empire Falls, has seen better
days, and for decades, in fact, only a succession from bad to worse. One
by one, its logging and textile enterprises have gone belly-up, and the
once vast holdings of the Whiting clan (presided over by the last scion's
widow) now mostly amount to decrepit real estate. The working classes, meanwhile,
continue to eke out whatever meagre promise isn't already boarded up. Miles Roby gazes over this ruined kingdom from the Empire Grill, an opportunity of his youth that has become the albatross of his daily and future life. Called back from college and set to work by family obligations - his mother ailing, his father a loose cannon - Miles never left home again. Even so, his own obligations are manifold: a pending divorce; a troubled younger brother; and, not least, a peculiar partnership in the failing grill with none other than Mrs. Whiting. All of these, though, are offset by his daughter, Tick, whom he guides gently and proudly through the tribulations of adolescence. A decent man encircled by history and dreams, by echoing churches and abandoned mills, by the comforts and feuds provided by lifelong friends and neighbours, Miles is also a patient, knowing guide to the rich, hardscrabble nature of Empire Falls. Empire Falls is a social novel of panoramic ambition, yet at the same time achingly personal. |
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
| Richard Russo lives in coastal Maine with his wife and daughters. He is the author of four previous novels, Mohawk, The Risk Pool, Nobody's Fool and Straight Man. Empire Falls won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. |
|
Find
out more about the author on the following websites: Read
an excerpt from Empire Falls |
 |
[home] [news] [this year's award] [publishers] [libraries] [award archive] [dublin city public libraries] [IMPAC] [faqs] [contact us]
Copyright
© 2011 Dublin City Public Libraries
