Mohawk (original 1986; edition 1994)

I fell in love with the works of Richard Russo when I read his Pulitzer Prize winning "Empire Falls". Since then, I've read most of what he has written; and to varying degrees loved it all. My favorites, in addition to Empire, are "Nobody's Fool", and a book I recently read called "Mohawk". Mohawk is the first book Russo ever wrote. If you know Russo at all, you know that his books read like a bluesy Bruce Springsteen song. They tend to be about a small blue collar town where the town's main employer has been polluting the air and water for years, and is edging ever closer to bankruptcy. And as the employer goes (in Mohawk the employer is a tannery) so goes the town. Russo examines the lives of the people who stay in such a dying town. Why do they stay? What is the story of their Glory Days, and how do they cope with the loss of those days? And is the tannery a villain for sucking the townspeople dry, and leaving them with nothing but a poison river, or a hero for giving many years of a break-even economy to an otherwise destitute townspeople? Mohawk was a very enjoyable and thought provoking book. ( )

I enjoyed this book a lot! Quirky characters in a quirky upstate New York town, most of them remarkably believable. A sad tale with in a style that actually leaves you feeling good.....normal folks living in situations not necessarily of their liking, but making the best of it and ultimately finding a path to some sort of peace.....yay Russo. I liked 'Nobody's Fool' and i really liked this....looking forward to more. ( )

This book challenged me to ask myself what comprises a "good book".

On the one hand, the part of me that majored in English in college loved every delicious page of this well-crafted work. Superb character sketches, insightful themes (can true love be wrong? are our lives directed by fate or self-will? why do we remain loyal to our mistakes? why do we seek to rationalize that which is inherently irrational?), some imaginative symbolism, the author's honest, graceful voice and technical skill - especially the way Russo paces the novel so that information & insights emerge organically, in the context of the story rather than via awkward expository text - kept me on my toes throughout the story, grinning with scholarly pleasure each time a plot deftly wrapped in on itself or a particularly ingenious turn of phrase suddenly illuminated a theme or universal truth. I love, too, that Russo doesn't condescend to his readers, trusting us to make inferences and recognize themes and to spot irony without hitting us over the head with it.

On the other hand, the reader in me craved something more ... filling. Characters that change and grow rather than remaining fixed points. (I recognize that this is a major theme of the story, but that doesn't make it any more satisfying.) A plot dominant enough to unite and give purpose to the fragmented, endlessly intersecting strands of storyline. Conflicts that rise above - or at least make more noble/meaningful - the everyday conflicts of duty, loyalty, selfishness, desire & honor that shape these characters' lives. This story simply doesn't stand up when it comes to capturing the reader's imagination - or heart.

I haven't yet read Empire Falls, but if Russo ever figures out how to blend his technical brilliance with characters & a story that capture the reader's attention and empathy, he is destined to become a formidable literary figure. I get English major goosebumps just thinking about it! ( )

3574. Mohawk, by Richard Russo (read May 1, 2002) I read this because I rather liked Russo's Pulitzer-prize-winning Empire Falls, so I thought I would read his first book, laid in a town in the Albany, N.Y., area. For a time the story held my interest, but then it got weirder and weirder and by the last chapters I no longer cared what happened to any of the characters. After I finished I noted a blurb on the book's jacket from John Irving--which should have I suppose warned me away from the book, since the one book of Irving's I've read left me with no desire to read a second of his. ( )