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Books by this Author:
In Detail:
Bridge of Sighs (2007)
The Whore's Child (2002)
Empire Falls (2001)

Others:
That Old Cape Magic (2009)

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A short essay by Peter Ackroyd about his 2009 novel The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
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   Author Biography

Browse a biography and interview of Richard Russo.
Plus: Book summary, excerpts and reviews at BookBrowse.com.

Richard Russo
Richard Russo Books by this author at BookBrowse:
That Old Cape Magic
Bridge of Sighs
The Whore's Child
Empire Falls

Read Interview
Biography

Richard Russo is one of American literature's foremost chroniclers of small-town life, making him a contemporary heir to the likes of Sinclair Lewis and Sherwood Anderson. His novels are set in fading industrial towns throughout the northeastern United States, and the towns are delineated so precisely that they almost become characters in their own right. Russo pays keen attention to the socioeconomic divisions that structure small-town life, the invisible but palpable lines that determine where people live, work, study, eat, drink. One of his recurring themes is the way that the decline of the factory town, as it succumbs to the brutal realities of globalization, affects the lives of its citizens who would otherwise be resistant to change. Though the settings and themes of his novels change—academic life in rural Pennsylvania in Straight Man, a tannery that poisons the local river in Bridge of Sighs—Russo has said, "Really, what I am writing about in all of these is, class and work."

Russo was born on July 15, 1949 and raised in Gloversville, New York, a town much like the fictional ones he depicts. He earned a B.A. (1967), a M.F.A. (1980), and a Ph.D. (1979) from the University of Arizona. Russo has taught at Southern Illinois University, The Iowa Writer's Workshop, Warren Wilson College, and Colby College. He was able to retire from teaching after his novel Nobody's Fool was made into a 1994 movie starring Paul Newman.

He has published six novels, one of which, Empire Falls (2001), won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for literature. His other novels include Mohawk (1986), The Risk Pool (1988), Nobody's Fool (1993), Straight Man (1997), and Bridge of Sighs (2007). He has also published a collection of short stories, The Whore's Child and Other Stories (2002).

Russo is, above all, a storyteller and when he isn't writing fiction, he writes screenplays. Russo co-wrote the 1998 film Twilight with director Robert Benton, who also adapted and directed Nobody's Fool. Russo wrote the teleplay for the HBO adaptation of Empire Falls and the screenplay for the 2005 film Ice Harvest. Though he has recently started to venture into nonfiction, he has said that he has no interest in the role of the public intellectual and doesn't believe it is the novelist's duty to be political. "I'm a professional liar," he explains, "I tell stories. I make things up."

He has two grown daughters and lives in coastal Maine with his wife.
This biography was last updated on 11/02/2007.
A note about the biographies
We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate. However, with over 1,500 lives to keep track of it's inevitable that some won't be as current or as complete as we would like. So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date, inaccurate or simply very short, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and those connected with authors: If you wish to make changes to your bio, please send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we replace the old with the new.

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