Empire Falls

Miles Roby has worked the grill at the Empire Grill in Empire Falls for twenty years. The job cost him his chance at college and a good part of his self-respect, yet he stays.

Several things could be holding him there. His daughter Tick is bright and sensitive, and she needs his help getting through the local high school. His wife Janine is on her way to becoming his ex-wife, and she has taken up with the vain owner of a health club.

Then there is Francine Whiting, who owns nearly everything in town and behaves as though Miles belongs on the list. Her hold on him is the hardest to shake.

Empire Falls is a blue-collar town of abandoned mills, where lifelong friends and neighbors supply both comfort and feuds. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize. Its tone mixes comedy with sadness, and humor turns up in the most unlikely corners of town life.

The question running underneath is why Miles has never left.