SOURCE: Allen, Bruce. “Love, Loss, and Small-Town Economics.” Boston Globe (5 August 2001): D5.

In the following review, Allen praises Russo's complex characterizations and effective interweaving of multiple plot threads in Empire Falls.

If you're seeking the perfect summertime read—a roomy, absorbing book in which to wander around and lose yourself for several relaxing days—you probably can't do better than Richard Russo's immensely satisfying fifth novel, Empire Falls.

Russo's credentials as a serious writer who never fails to entertain were firmly established by his bighearted early novels Mohawk (1986) and The Risk Pool (1988), bittersweet comic chronicles of economic decline and moral growth set in the small towns of their author's native upstate New York. Russo achieved an even greater popularity with Nobody's Fool (1993), a dead-on portrayal of a charismatic 60-something wastrel that inspired a deservedly acclaimed Paul Newman film. Its successor, Straight Man (1997), is, if possible, an even funnier...