Richard Russo biography

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Readalikes

Richard Russo
Pic: Elena Siebert

Richard Russo

Richard Russo Biography

Richard Russo is the author of eight previous novels, two collections of stories, a collection of essays, and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody's Fool was adapted to film, in a multiple-award-winning HBO miniseries; in 2016 he was given the Indie Champion Award by the American Booksellers Association; and in 2017 he received France's Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine. He lives in Portland, Maine, where his daughter Emily runs Print, a terrific indie bookstore.



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Interview

Join us for a conversation with Richard Russo as he discusses Empire Falls.

Was there a particular event or image that sparked Empire Falls?
When I finish a novel, it's hard to go back and try to reconstruct its beginnings. It's a little like an interrogation: what did you know and when did you know it? Here are a couple of things, though. When I was living in Waterville, Maine, some years ago, a factory closed down that had employed a large number of women who had been sewing famous-label men's dress shirts for much of their lives. They'd done everything they could to save their jobs and the factory, but the multi-national company that owned it shut them down anyway. That struck me as a story that was playing out all over the country, if not the world. From the beginning of my writing career, I've always been interested in ordinary people swept up in economic and political forces they can't begin to comprehend, as well as in the changing face of American labor. Becoming a writer has only deepened my sympathies for working people, who are always, it seems to me, the first to be sold out.

The other event that had burrowed deep was the school shooting in Paducah, especially the question it begged: how could such a thing happen here? The answers that are typically...

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Books by this Author

Books by Richard Russo at BookBrowse
Chances Are ... jacket Trajectory jacket Everybody's Fool jacket Elsewhere jacket
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Readalikes

All the books below are recommended as readalikes for Richard Russo but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
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  • Lauren Acampora

    Lauren Acampora

    Lauren Acampora's fiction has appeared in the Paris Review, Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, New England Review, and Antioch Review. Raised in Connecticut, she now lives in Westchester County, New York, with her husband, ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Everybody's Fool

    Try:
    The Wonder Garden
    by Lauren Acampora

  • Paul Auster

    Paul Auster

    Paul Auster is the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1Sunset ParkThe Book of Illusions, Moon Palace, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Empire Falls

    Try:
    Sunset Park
    by Paul Auster

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