Empire Falls | Style
Setting
Empire Falls is a town mired in its own past. The once prosperous shirt factory and textile mill stand empty, a constant reminder of what the town has lost. Unable to imagine a new future, the town’s citizens dream of returning to the past. At least once a year someone spots an expensive car parked at the old mill, and the same optimistic rumor begins circulating: someone is going to buy it and put the whole town back to work again.
This bleak setting is a key element of the novel because the local poverty narrows Miles’s options. Here in Empire...
[The entire page is 1576 words long]
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