Bridgman reviewed Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Review of 'Empire Falls' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Have you ever read a book that everybody loved and that won many awards yet it did nothing for you so you went online to look for negative reviews to see if anyone else, preferably a professional book critic, felt as you do?
That's what I did with Empire Falls, Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize-winning 2001 novel (how it could beat Jonathon Franzen's The Corrections for that is beyond me) about the goings on of a Maine family in Empire Falls, an economically depressed town in the central part of the state.
I didn't find many. Critics called it wryly humorous, compassionate, good storytelling. I enjoyed reading it but ... I didn't attack it with the zest I do with books I truly love; I had no trouble putting Empire Falls down. The most negative thing I found on it was a passing review of the book by a critic …
Have you ever read a book that everybody loved and that won many awards yet it did nothing for you so you went online to look for negative reviews to see if anyone else, preferably a professional book critic, felt as you do?
That's what I did with Empire Falls, Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize-winning 2001 novel (how it could beat Jonathon Franzen's The Corrections for that is beyond me) about the goings on of a Maine family in Empire Falls, an economically depressed town in the central part of the state.
I didn't find many. Critics called it wryly humorous, compassionate, good storytelling. I enjoyed reading it but ... I didn't attack it with the zest I do with books I truly love; I had no trouble putting Empire Falls down. The most negative thing I found on it was a passing review of the book by a critic who was reviewing its 2005 HBO adaptation and called it "well meaning but turgid." I'll go with that. This 483-page novel would've made a great 350-page one.
