Empire Falls - a generation ago the thriving base of a timber and textile company - is now blemished by abandoned factories and boarded-up stores. Like his hometown, the protagonist of Richard Russo's latest novel, Empire Falls, seems battered and gun-shy, maybe even doomed for the scrap heap. Despite 20 years of marriage, his wife, Janine, is so put off by her husband's malaise that she's left him for a sexy, muscled, fitness-club entrepreneur. Most folks in little Empire Falls in central Maine admire Roby, who runs the local diner, but they sense that some vital spark is missing in him. In the short run, though, these qualities are likely to be obscured by truckloads of inertia, risk-aversion and general bloodlessness. Stay with Miles Roby long enough and you can't miss the integrity, reliability, kindness and thoughtfulness that make him such a decent human being.
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