Richard Russo, a Maine-born author, writes about small-town life and the struggles of New England families. His novels often focus on interpersonal relationships and the influence of dying cities on their residents. Russo’s upbringing in a working-class environment influences his themes of missed opportunities. He retired from teaching at ColCollege and lives in Camden, Maine with his family. His acclaimed novels include Empire Falls and Bridge of Sighs.
Richard Russo, originally from Maine, is the author of several acclaimed novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Empire Falls. While his name doesn’t ring as loudly as that of another Maine author, Stephen King, Richard Russo’s writing captures the essence of small-town life. He describes the struggles that accompany the ingrained attitudes and habits of New England families.
Born in Johnstown, New York and educated at the University of Arizona, much of Richard Russo’s fiction revolves around small-town life in New York and New England. His work often focuses on interpersonal relationships and feeling isolated in the midst of poverty or, simply, the lack of external stimuli. Empire Falls, for example, centers on Miles Roby, the manager of a diner in a former mill in rural Maine. Richard Russo focuses on Miles’ struggle to cope with his life in general and his place in the world, but also his relationship with his precocious teenage daughter who Miles adores but can see drifting away from him.
In a Richard Russo novel, it is not uncommon to come across a city that is on its last legs or is already dead. Indeed, it often seems that Russo creates these cities to be a character himself, effectively influencing the characters and their decision making as they interact not only with other characters, but also with the setting. There are very stark similarities between Empire Falls, Maine, the setting of Empire Falls, Bath, New York from Nobody’s Fool, and Thomaston, New York from Richard Russo’s most recent novel, Bridge of Sighs. Each setting seems to have a drastic influence on its residents and the events that occur in the novel.
Russo’s approach to working-class cities and people perhaps comes from his upbringing in such an environment. A major theme in his writings is missed opportunities, something most residents of troubled cities like Empire Falls — and the cities where Russo spent his childhood — encounter on a regular basis. The main character of Russo’s Nobody’s Fool, a hapless man named Sully, seems plagued by bad decisions and missed opportunities, which is very much the case with another of Russo’s characters, Max Rhodes in Empire Falls. Both seem a bit grumpy and battered, but often ambivalent about their surroundings and the people who populate their existence. Thematically, Russo has a solid understanding of small New England towns and the people who still struggle to populate them.
Richard Russo spent many years as a professor at ColCollege in Waterville, Maine. He retired from Cole and now lives in nearby Camden, Maine with his wife and two daughters. His full list of titles is as follows: Mohawk, The Risk Pool, Nobody’s Fool, Straight Man, Empire Falls, The Whore’s Child and Other Stories, and Bridge of Sighs.
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