Empire gives a sense of small town deja vu

EMPIRE FALLS by Richard Russo, Knopf, 483 pages, $25.95.

The death and partial recovery of Maine’s old mill towns form the backdrop for this mainstream novel that is very topical in its plot. It’s a simple one, it seems, as it depicts life through the eyes of Miles Roby, manager of the Empire Grill, focusing on the small-town characters that populate this novel.

As we amble through its pages, we meet an assortment of characters, many of them wryly drawn. We learn of the problems of a town that once was prosperous, its shirt factory and textile mill providing employment for most. We gain insights into the Whiting family that owned the factory and mill as well as a pulp mill a few miles away. Much of the background is explained in flashbacks.

The Whitings, especially the matriarch, Francine Robideaux Whiting, provide a neat counterpoint to the mostly blue-collar workers who eke out an existence in this “Main Street” community.

The theme of such a novel would seem to be depressing. Through the eyes of Max’s wife, as she attends a high school football game, Russo describes the “limber cheerleaders” who “would be married and then pregnant by these same boys or others like them a town or two away. And how swiftly life would descend on the boys, as well.”

“First the panic that maybe they’d have to go through it alone, then the quick marriage to prevent that grim fate, followed by relentless house and car payments and doctors’ bills and all the rest. … Their jobs, their marriages, their kids, their lives – all of it a grind.”

How can you build a fictional work out of the lives of people who are stuck in a town that has more buildings boarded up than ones that are bright and bountiful?

Russo, who lives in coastal Maine, does it with a comic touch. He has a relaxed narrative style while he develops a host of characters. And he does it mostly through the eyes of Miles.

Miles “was about the nicest, saddest man in all of Empire Falls.” He gave up his plans when his mother became sick with cancer, and he dropped out of college to come home and run the diner owned by Francine Robideaux Whiting. Miles has a smart young daughter, Christina – known as Tick, and a wife, Janine, who is divorcing him for a “banty rooster” named Walt Comeau. Walt, who calls himself “The Silver Fox,” runs a fitness club, and Janine is obsessed with him or, more accurately, with sex with him.

The Roby clan also includes Miles’ father, Max, an aging sometime house painter who has a “cheerful, sensible cowardice in the face of unpleasantness.” Max’s philosophy for dealing with people is not to appear ambitious. “Don’t call attention to yourself, was his advice. Keep your eyes open for opportunities, but don’t get greedy. Steal small.” And Max steals money at every opportunity from Miles.

In contrast, Miles seems to have been imbued with some of the philosophy of his mother, Grace, who believed “a person’s duty on earth, God’s plan – spelled out in the Bible, to make life a little more fair – was for us to feed the hungry, to give warm clothing to those who were cold and drink to those who were thirsty. … And, most important, it was our duty to give love to those who needed our affection.”

People needed love the most, Grace thought, “and the best part was that love didn’t cost anything. Even poor people could afford to make a gift of it to the rich.”

Miles’ problems include a brother, David, who has had a drinking problem, plus his father, the divorce and bringing up his teen-age daughter. Russo complicates his life with the love of a crippled Cindy Whiting and Miles’ relationship with her mother, Francine, who literally owns the town.

Francine, Russo tells us, was “elegantly dressed … her hair cut and styled expertly, her tweed jacket and moleskin slacks smartly tailored, her wrists alive with jewelry.” She “looked like a woman who’d been enough of a good sport to give old age a try but then decided against it, much preferring youth. Somehow she’d negotiated for its return, not all at once, of course, but rather gradually. … Even spookier, Mrs. Whiting also radiated – Miles had no idea how – a sexuality that was alive and ticking.”

Russo provides a virtual bouillabaisse of Empire Falls people. There’s aging Horace Weymouth, a meek reporter; Father Mark, whose intellect matches Miles’ and with whom Miles has discussions about life and living. There’s Charlene Gardiner, a waitress at the Empire Grill, who Miles has been a little bit in love with from high school days. There’s Jimmy Minty, a classmate who has become a cop and a corrupt one at that. And there’s John Voss, a loner at school whom Tick befriends.

“Of all the kids at Empire High, he seems to Tick the most unknowable, and for this reason he scares her a little. It isn’t so much his strange, thrift-shop clothes or his hair cut in patches, as if he’d done the job himself, but his silence.”

This sharp, insightful description of the characters builds up interest, even suspense, as the pages go by. The pace is slow, befitting a dying or dead town. But then there are a series of shocking developments and the novel comes alive.

This is a tough book to read, but a worthwhile one. The narration, description, scene-building and characters are top-notch. It would be better about 100 pages less. And if you have driven through various towns in Maine, you will swear that Empire Falls is someplace you have passed through.