
Empire Falls
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $24.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Ron McLarty
-
By:
-
Richard Russo
About this listen
Richard Russo - from his first novel, Mohawk, to his most recent, Straight Man - has demonstrated a peerless affinity for the human tragicomedy, and with this stunning new novel he extends even further his claims on the small-town, blue-collar heart of the country.
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 meager 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 neighbors, Miles is also a patient, knowing guide to the rich, hardscrabble nature of Empire Falls: fathers and sons and daughters, living and dead, rich and poor alike. Shot through with the mysteries of generations and the shattering visitations of the nation at large, it is a social novel of panoramic ambition, yet at the same time achingly personal. In the end, Empire Falls reveals our worst and best instincts, both our most appalling nightmares and our simplest hopes, with all the vision, grace and humanity of truly epic storytelling.
©2001 Richard Russo (P)2011 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Nobody's Fool
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 24 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Divorced from his own wife and carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, saddled with a bum knee and friends who make enemies redundant, Sully now has one new problem to cope with: a long-estranged son who is in imminent danger of following in his father's footsteps. With its uproarious humor and a heart that embraces humanity's follies as well as its triumphs, Nobody's Fool, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Russo, is storytelling at its most generous. Nobody’s Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy, and Melody Griffith.
-
-
Wonderful Book Fabulous Narrator
- By Marsha on 04-27-05
By: Richard Russo
-
Bridge of Sighs
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 26 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Louis Charles ("Lucy") Lynch has spent all his 60 years in upstate Thomaston, New York, married to the same woman, Sarah, for 40 of them, their son now a grown man. Like his late, beloved father, Lucy is an optimist, though he's had plenty of reasons not to be: chief among them his mother, still indomitably alive.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Victoria Wright on 10-08-07
By: Richard Russo
-
Straight Man
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Sam Freed
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University. Over the course of a single convoluted week, he threatens to execute a duck, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers that his secretary writes better fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and finally confronts his philandering elderly father, the one-time king of American Literary Theory, at an abandoned amusement park.
-
-
Straight Man
- By Holly Abery-Wetstone on 10-17-03
By: Richard Russo
-
Chances Are...
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One beautiful September day, three men convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college circa the 60s. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today - Lincoln's a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey a musician beyond his rockin' age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971: the disappearance of the woman each of them loved - Jacy Calloway.
-
-
Incredibly Disappointing
- By Brent Duncan on 08-28-19
By: Richard Russo
-
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
-
-
Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
- By Stephnsea on 08-12-23
By: James McBride
-
The Bee Sting
- A Novel
- By: Paul Murray
- Narrated by: Heather O’Sullivan, Barry Fitzgerald, Beau Holland, and others
- Length: 26 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under—but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.
-
-
Bone Clocks meets Jonathan Franzen
- By Cranson on 10-26-23
By: Paul Murray
-
Nobody's Fool
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 24 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Divorced from his own wife and carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, saddled with a bum knee and friends who make enemies redundant, Sully now has one new problem to cope with: a long-estranged son who is in imminent danger of following in his father's footsteps. With its uproarious humor and a heart that embraces humanity's follies as well as its triumphs, Nobody's Fool, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Russo, is storytelling at its most generous. Nobody’s Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy, and Melody Griffith.
-
-
Wonderful Book Fabulous Narrator
- By Marsha on 04-27-05
By: Richard Russo
-
Bridge of Sighs
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 26 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Louis Charles ("Lucy") Lynch has spent all his 60 years in upstate Thomaston, New York, married to the same woman, Sarah, for 40 of them, their son now a grown man. Like his late, beloved father, Lucy is an optimist, though he's had plenty of reasons not to be: chief among them his mother, still indomitably alive.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Victoria Wright on 10-08-07
By: Richard Russo
-
Straight Man
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Sam Freed
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University. Over the course of a single convoluted week, he threatens to execute a duck, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers that his secretary writes better fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and finally confronts his philandering elderly father, the one-time king of American Literary Theory, at an abandoned amusement park.
-
-
Straight Man
- By Holly Abery-Wetstone on 10-17-03
By: Richard Russo
-
Chances Are...
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One beautiful September day, three men convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college circa the 60s. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today - Lincoln's a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey a musician beyond his rockin' age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971: the disappearance of the woman each of them loved - Jacy Calloway.
-
-
Incredibly Disappointing
- By Brent Duncan on 08-28-19
By: Richard Russo
-
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
-
-
Multiple Stories Obfuscate Narrative
- By Stephnsea on 08-12-23
By: James McBride
-
The Bee Sting
- A Novel
- By: Paul Murray
- Narrated by: Heather O’Sullivan, Barry Fitzgerald, Beau Holland, and others
- Length: 26 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under—but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.
-
-
Bone Clocks meets Jonathan Franzen
- By Cranson on 10-26-23
By: Paul Murray
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
Demon Copperhead
- A Novel
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
-
-
Wow! It’s a Masterpiece
- By Billy on 10-25-22
-
Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
- By: Hernan Diaz
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Jonathan Davis, Mozhan Marnò, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
-
-
Before Purchasing
- By JLDLOfficial on 08-13-22
By: Hernan Diaz
-
Sh*tshow
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David and Ellie didn’t realize how much they have missed their friends, two other couples who had moved out of their modest neighborhood in a desert city for the comforts of the suburbs, until the day of Donald Trump’s election. Separated also from their daughter who lived hours away in California, they were in a funk. But, when Ellie discovers a repellent offering floating in the small Jacuzzi in their backyard, David is blindsided. Little does he know this is but the first in a chain of grisly events that would play out in their lives with devastating consequences.
-
-
Should have paid more attention to the title
- By Susan K. on 06-11-22
By: Richard Russo
-
The Covenant of Water
- By: Abraham Verghese
- Narrated by: Abraham Verghese
- Length: 31 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time.
-
-
Story Telling At Its Best
- By Regina on 05-06-23
By: Abraham Verghese
-
Beartown
- By: Fredrik Backman
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semifinals, and they actually have a shot at winning.
-
-
Miserable
- By Dee Garza on 06-12-17
By: Fredrik Backman
-
Trajectory
- Stories
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin, Arthur Morey, Fred Sanders, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Russo's characters in these four expansive stories bear little similarity to the blue-collar citizens we're familiar with from many of his novels. In "Horseman", a professor confronts a young plagiarist as well as her own weaknesses as the Thanksgiving holiday looms closer and closer: "And after that, who knew?" In "Intervention", a realtor facing an ominous medical prognosis finds himself in his father's shadow while he presses forward - or not.
-
-
Melancholy but Rewarding
- By David on 07-08-17
By: Richard Russo
-
The Shipping News
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At 36, Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman, is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife gets her just desserts. He retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. As three generations of his family cobble up new lives, Quoyle confronts his private demons - and the unpredictable forces of nature and society - and begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.
-
-
Can't Explain Why I Love This Book
- By Polly on 03-06-12
By: Annie Proulx
-
Inherent Vice
- By: Thomas Pynchon
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon - Private eye Doc Sportello surfaces, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era. In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre that is at once exciting and accessible, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the '60s, you weren't there. It's been a while since Doc Sportello has seen his ex- girlfriend. Suddenly she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with.
-
-
Fun Pynchon, don't be afraid
- By Darryl on 08-21-09
By: Thomas Pynchon
-
The Whore's Child and Other Stories
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall, Robertson Dean, Arthur Morey, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A cynical Hollywood moviemaker confronts his dead wife’s lover and abruptly realizes the depth of his own passion. As his parents’ marriage disintegrates, a precocious fifth-grader distracts himself with meditations on baseball, spaghetti, and his place in the universe. And in the title story, an elderly nun enters a college creative writing class and plays havoc with its tidy notions of fact and fiction. The Whore’s Child is further proof that Russo is one of the finest writers we have.
-
-
Worth the Download
- By Delah on 10-31-11
By: Richard Russo
-
Iron Lake
- Cork O'Connor, Book 1
- By: William Kent Krueger
- Narrated by: David Chandler
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anthony Award-winning author William Kent Krueger crafts this riveting tale about a small Minnesota town’s ex-sheriff who is having trouble retiring his badge. Cork O’Connor loses his job after being blamed for a tragedy on the local Anishinaabe Indian reservation. But he must set aside his personal demons when a young boy goes missing on the same day a judge commits suicide—and no one but O’Connor suspects foul play.
-
-
Great New Series
- By Lia on 06-01-18
-
Deacon King Kong
- A Novel
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project's drug dealer at point-blank range. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong, James McBride's funny, moving novel and his first since his National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird.
-
-
Masterpiece
- By Linda G McDonough on 05-17-20
By: James McBride
Critic reviews
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Nobody's Fool
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 24 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Divorced from his own wife and carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, saddled with a bum knee and friends who make enemies redundant, Sully now has one new problem to cope with: a long-estranged son who is in imminent danger of following in his father's footsteps. With its uproarious humor and a heart that embraces humanity's follies as well as its triumphs, Nobody's Fool, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Russo, is storytelling at its most generous. Nobody’s Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy, and Melody Griffith.
-
-
Wonderful Book Fabulous Narrator
- By Marsha on 04-27-05
By: Richard Russo
-
Empire Falls (Danish Edition)
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Peter Bøttger
- Length: 21 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miles Roby har langet burgere over disken i Empire Grill i tyve år, og derfra kan han se ned ad hovedgaden i den engang så driftige industriby Empire Falls og fornemme byens puls, som nu slår meget langsomt. For Whiting-familien, der ejer fabrikkerne og det meste andet på egnen, har flyttet produktionen væk fra byen, og det har skruet livet i Empire Falls ned på vågeblus.Så det er bekymrede kunder, der letter deres hjerte over for Miles - som har sine helt egne problemer.
-
-
It's all Greek to me!
- By Gashea on 11-06-16
By: Richard Russo
-
Bridge of Sighs
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 26 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Louis Charles ("Lucy") Lynch has spent all his 60 years in upstate Thomaston, New York, married to the same woman, Sarah, for 40 of them, their son now a grown man. Like his late, beloved father, Lucy is an optimist, though he's had plenty of reasons not to be: chief among them his mother, still indomitably alive.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Victoria Wright on 10-08-07
By: Richard Russo
-
Chances Are...
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One beautiful September day, three men convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college circa the 60s. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today - Lincoln's a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey a musician beyond his rockin' age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971: the disappearance of the woman each of them loved - Jacy Calloway.
-
-
Incredibly Disappointing
- By Brent Duncan on 08-28-19
By: Richard Russo
-
Straight Man
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Sam Freed
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University. Over the course of a single convoluted week, he threatens to execute a duck, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers that his secretary writes better fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and finally confronts his philandering elderly father, the one-time king of American Literary Theory, at an abandoned amusement park.
-
-
Straight Man
- By Holly Abery-Wetstone on 10-17-03
By: Richard Russo
-
Mohawk
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A first novel with all the assurance of a mature writer at the peak of form and ambition, Mohawk is set in upstate New York and chronicles more than a dozen lives in a leather town, long after the tanneries have started closing down. Ranging over three generations - and clustered mainly in two clans, the Grouses and the Gaffneys - these remarkably various lives share only the common human dilemmas and the awesome physical and emotional presence of Mohawk itself.
-
-
Narrator sounds like a computer
- By anne on 02-20-19
By: Richard Russo
-
Nobody's Fool
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 24 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Divorced from his own wife and carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, saddled with a bum knee and friends who make enemies redundant, Sully now has one new problem to cope with: a long-estranged son who is in imminent danger of following in his father's footsteps. With its uproarious humor and a heart that embraces humanity's follies as well as its triumphs, Nobody's Fool, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Russo, is storytelling at its most generous. Nobody’s Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy, and Melody Griffith.
-
-
Wonderful Book Fabulous Narrator
- By Marsha on 04-27-05
By: Richard Russo
-
Empire Falls (Danish Edition)
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Peter Bøttger
- Length: 21 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miles Roby har langet burgere over disken i Empire Grill i tyve år, og derfra kan han se ned ad hovedgaden i den engang så driftige industriby Empire Falls og fornemme byens puls, som nu slår meget langsomt. For Whiting-familien, der ejer fabrikkerne og det meste andet på egnen, har flyttet produktionen væk fra byen, og det har skruet livet i Empire Falls ned på vågeblus.Så det er bekymrede kunder, der letter deres hjerte over for Miles - som har sine helt egne problemer.
-
-
It's all Greek to me!
- By Gashea on 11-06-16
By: Richard Russo
-
Bridge of Sighs
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 26 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Louis Charles ("Lucy") Lynch has spent all his 60 years in upstate Thomaston, New York, married to the same woman, Sarah, for 40 of them, their son now a grown man. Like his late, beloved father, Lucy is an optimist, though he's had plenty of reasons not to be: chief among them his mother, still indomitably alive.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Victoria Wright on 10-08-07
By: Richard Russo
-
Chances Are...
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One beautiful September day, three men convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college circa the 60s. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today - Lincoln's a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey a musician beyond his rockin' age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971: the disappearance of the woman each of them loved - Jacy Calloway.
-
-
Incredibly Disappointing
- By Brent Duncan on 08-28-19
By: Richard Russo
-
Straight Man
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Sam Freed
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania University. Over the course of a single convoluted week, he threatens to execute a duck, has his nose slashed by a feminist poet, discovers that his secretary writes better fiction than he does, suspects his wife of having an affair with his dean, and finally confronts his philandering elderly father, the one-time king of American Literary Theory, at an abandoned amusement park.
-
-
Straight Man
- By Holly Abery-Wetstone on 10-17-03
By: Richard Russo
-
Mohawk
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A first novel with all the assurance of a mature writer at the peak of form and ambition, Mohawk is set in upstate New York and chronicles more than a dozen lives in a leather town, long after the tanneries have started closing down. Ranging over three generations - and clustered mainly in two clans, the Grouses and the Gaffneys - these remarkably various lives share only the common human dilemmas and the awesome physical and emotional presence of Mohawk itself.
-
-
Narrator sounds like a computer
- By anne on 02-20-19
By: Richard Russo
-
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
- By: Robert Olen Butler
- Narrated by: Robert Olen Butler
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robert Olen Butler's lyrical and poignant collection of stories about the aftermath of the Vietnam War and its impact on the Vietnamese was acclaimed by critics across the nation and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. This edition includes two subsequently published stories - "Salem" and "Missing" - that brilliantly complete the collection's narrative journey with a return to the jungles of Vietnam.
-
-
RARE AND WONDERFUL STORIES!
- By Mimi Routh on 05-06-14
-
That Old Cape Magic
- A Novel
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Griffin has been tooling around for nearly a year with his father’s ashes in the trunk, but his mother is very much alive and not shy about calling on his cell phone. She does so as he drives down to Cape Cod, where he and his wife, Joy, will celebrate the marriage of their daughter Laura’s best friend. For Griffin this is akin to driving into the past, since he took his childhood summer vacations here, his parents’ respite from the hated Midwest.
-
-
Instantly-recognizable Richard Russo book
- By Fred Pike on 10-04-09
By: Richard Russo
-
The Stone Diaries
- By: Carol Shields, Penelope Lively - introduction
- Narrated by: Deborah Drakeford
- Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in 1905, Daisy Goodwill Flett drifts through the chapters of childhood, marriage, widowhood, remarriage, motherhood, and old age, bewildered by her inability to understand her own role in the unsettled decades of the twentieth century. At last, reflecting on her unobserved and unconventional life, Daisy attempts to find a way to tell her story within a novel that is itself about the limitations of autobiography.
-
-
Excellent Narrative
- By Deborah H. Holloway on 03-10-24
By: Carol Shields, and others
-
Ironweed
- By: William Kennedy
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, full-time drunk, has hit bottom. Years ago he left Albany in a hurry after killing a scab during a trolley workers' strike; he ran away again after accidentally – and fatally – dropping his infant son. Now, in 1938, Francis is back in town, roaming the old familiar streets with his hobo pal, Helen, trying to make peace with the ghosts of the past and the present.
-
-
Darkly Lovely
- By Michael on 07-22-17
By: William Kennedy
-
Tinkers
- By: Paul Harding
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An old man lies dying. Confined to bed in his living room, he sees the walls around him begin to collapse, the windows come loose from their sashes, and the ceiling plaster fall off in great chunks, showering him with a lifetime of debris: newspaper clippings, old photographs, wool jackets, rusty tools, and the mangled brass works of antique clocks. Soon, the clouds from the sky above plummet down on top of him, followed by the stars, till the black night covers him like a shroud. He is hallucinating.
-
-
Annoying and pretentious
- By William on 01-12-09
By: Paul Harding
-
Elsewhere
- A memoir
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Richard Russo
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anyone familiar with Richard Russo's acclaimed novels will recognize Gloversville, once famous for producing that eponymous product and anything else made of leather. This is where the author grew up, the only son of an aspirant mother and a charming, feckless father who were born into this close-knit community. But by the time of his childhood in the 1950s, prosperity was inexorably being replaced by poverty and illness (often tannery-related), with everyone barely scraping by under a very low horizon.
-
-
Elsewhere---but not far enough
- By William on 12-08-12
By: Richard Russo
-
Interpreter of Maladies
- By: Jhumpa Lahiri
- Narrated by: Matilda Novak
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With accomplished precision and gentle eloquence, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the crosscurrents set in motion when immigrants, expatriates, and their children arrive, quite literally, at a cultural divide. The nine stories in this stunning debut collection unerringly chart the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations.
-
-
skip it
- By Sheri on 06-30-09
By: Jhumpa Lahiri
-
A Thousand Acres
- By: Jane Smiley
- Narrated by: C. J. Critt
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three daughters and their husbands are pulled into a tangle of love, jealousy, and fear when their father, Larry Cook, grows too old to manage the family's fertile thousand-acre farm. As each couple struggles with their own tragedies and challenges, they know their father is judging them in light of the weighty inheritance that hovers within their reach.
-
-
good book bad reader
- By C. Carlson on 08-07-08
By: Jane Smiley
-
Three Junes
- A Novel
- By: Julia Glass
- Narrated by: John Keating
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three Junes is a vividly textured symphonic novel set on both sides of the Atlantic during three fateful summers in the lives of a Scottish family. Three Junes "almost threatens to burst with all the life it contains...extraordinary," says Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours.
-
-
Beautiful Narration of a Wonderful Story!
- By Dagmar on 01-09-03
By: Julia Glass
-
The Destiny Thief
- Essays on Writing, Writers and Life
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Richard Russo
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In these nine essays, Richard Russo provides insight into his life as a writer, teacher, friend, and reader. From a commencement speech he gave at Colby College, to the story of how an oddly placed toilet made him reevaluate the purpose of humor in art and life, to a comprehensive analysis of Mark Twain's value, to his harrowing journey accompanying a dear friend as she pursued gender-reassignment surgery, The Destiny Thief reflects the broad interests and experiences of one of America's most beloved authors.
-
-
The Destiny Thief
- By anne on 08-22-18
By: Richard Russo
-
Sh*tshow
- By: Richard Russo
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David and Ellie didn’t realize how much they have missed their friends, two other couples who had moved out of their modest neighborhood in a desert city for the comforts of the suburbs, until the day of Donald Trump’s election. Separated also from their daughter who lived hours away in California, they were in a funk. But, when Ellie discovers a repellent offering floating in the small Jacuzzi in their backyard, David is blindsided. Little does he know this is but the first in a chain of grisly events that would play out in their lives with devastating consequences.
-
-
Should have paid more attention to the title
- By Susan K. on 06-11-22
By: Richard Russo
-
It Occurs to Me That I Am America
- New Stories and Art
- By: Richard Russo, Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman, and others
- Narrated by: Christian Barillas, Francois Chau, Kyla Garcia, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In time for the one-year anniversary of the Trump inauguration and the Women's March, this provocative, unprecedented anthology features original short stories from 30 best-selling and award-winning authors - including Alice Walker, Richard Russo, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Hoffman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Cunningham, Mary Higgins Clark, and Lee Child - with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen.
-
-
Fantastic!!! So moving.
- By Amazon Customer on 06-14-21
By: Richard Russo, and others
What listeners say about Empire Falls
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- robert weinstein
- 04-23-17
Lively narration interesting story woven threads
I like this one a lot. I'm working my way through the pulitzer Prize winners . This a wonderful Vue into the lives of the different characters twisting and turning it's fun
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mike
- 05-29-19
Solid Storytelling
Great solid novel. Interesting and developed characters. It’s well paced, has depth, humor and substance.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jonathan
- 06-08-18
Wonderful story, great narration, garbage audio
This is a magnificent book. Whoever recorded the audio must have used two different mix engineers. One who has an ear and one who thinks compressing the voiceover into a crunchy mess. One chapter sounds great. The next terrible. And back and forth.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Colorado Listener
- 01-01-21
Wow. Fantastic book
I learned of this book, after reading an article in Vanity Fair regarding Ivanka Trump. In the article it was mentioned that she did not want to discuss or read this book because it was about poor people. That peaked my interest I therefore looked for it on audible. I can see why the book won the Pulitzer Prize. The writing, the narrative, the plots and subplots kept my interest for the entire duration of the book. I found it important to really pay attention to all the details at the beginning of the book as they became quite significant by the end of the book.
The narrator was excellent. He was able to change his voice according to the different characters. Even had a pretty good Maine accent when appropriate.
I will probably find that the next book I listen to will be a bit of a letdown compared to this one. I give it my highest rating.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 03-12-24
Wonderful characters
An interesting story that we’ve together the lives of many interesting characters. Best book I’ve read in a while.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rigadon
- 01-24-15
Pulitzer Prize well deserved
Every book written by Richard Russo have been excellent. About simple everyday life, and folks we all recognize, yet every phrase turns your head.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
12 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Steve
- 03-31-14
Fine wine for the soul. Savor every word.
Sip swirl and breath. Repeat. Recharge your soul with this as from a glass dark and deep with all the beautiful truths and failures of being human.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Willow Star Serenity
- 11-25-18
Whoa
This book was pretty awesome. It was full of intrigue and drama. It was also full of wit and humor. It was a very wonderful thought provoking book. I'm glad I got the chance to read it and I fully recommend it!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dwane
- 04-10-22
Good one
My 3rd Russo book , Nobody’s fool - Awesome!! and Chances Are umm great writing, didn’t like the characters.
Much Like Nobody’s Fool this book does take a few chapters to get into the characters, but they’re likable . In short I liked these guys and enjoyed hanging out with them for 20+ hours .
Also I love this Narrator, great work ! The story was a bit Like SK - Bag of Bones but different enough. Good story Enjoy !!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- PatriciaB-55
- 08-15-18
Exceptionally fine performance
What a wonderful book. How did I miss this classic when it came out? I'm now a bona fide Russo fan for his vivid, true to life small-town characters. Ron McLarty gives an amazing performance with different voices and characterizations of all the main characters. No one could have brought Russo's characters more to life. Thoroughly enjoyable.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!