Falling from Grace

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In Richard Russo’s Empire Falls, he tells us about the lives of the some of the residents of a dying New England mill town. Miles Roby, a lifetime resident and father that runs the local eatery, the Empire Grill, for Francine Whiting, the matriarch of Empire Falls. They have known each other for a long time. Miles’s mother, Grace Roby had an affair with C.B. Whiting the owner of the textile mill, and Mrs. Whiting’s husband. This set off a chain of events that eventually led to Francine promising to leave Miles the Empire Grill in her will.
When Miles was a child, his mother worked in the office of C.B. Whiting. They began to see each other outside of work. Grace took Miles on a trip to Martha’s Vineyard to get away for a while, at least that is what Miles thought. Soon after arriving he met a man named Charlie Mayne (C.B. Whiting). Grace and Miles went for a ride in Charlie’s car to the beach. After Miles went to the beach for a little while he came back up and noticed, “There’d been just enough light to see his mother’s head resting on Charlie Mayne’s shoulder” (Russo 142). Miles realizes that his mom is attracted to this other man and concludes that this wasn’t just a chance meeting.
As a result of Grace meeting Charlie Mayne (C.B. Whiting) in Martha’s Vineyard, Grace Confesses what she had done to the local Catholic Priest. When Grace and Miles returned home, Miles noticed how unhappy his mother was. After days of staying in her room she decided that she needed to go and confess her transgressions to Father Tom. Miles, not wanting to say anything about what his mom did, decided to make up and confess sins that he felt were just as zbad as the ones that he wouldn’t tell. After he confessed to the priest, “Miles knelt and sai...

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...ir arrangement, struck nearly twenty years ago now…he would run the restaurant for the remainder of Mrs. Whiting’s life, then inherit the place”(Russo 35). Miles has always had a strange place in Mrs. Whiting’s heart.
The twisted circumstances of Empire Falls, Francine runs everything. When Miles mother has an affair with C.B. Whiting, it leads to grace confessing and then C.B. is sent to Mexico and the Mill is sold and closed. Then Grace is given a job working for Mrs. Whiting, then Francine offers to help Miles learn to drive. Then a Miles mother gets sick which caused him to come home then he is offered a job and eventually a promise to own the Empire Grill. Dealing with Mrs. Whiting is never what it seems so it is not clear whether it is an act of kindness or control.

Work Cited
Russo, Richard. Empire Falls. New York: Vintage, 2001.Print.

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