Mohawk | Richard Russo | Lost Opportunities

Mohawk | Richard Russo | Russo is quite brilliant.

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Mohawk

	Mohawk Richard Russo Vintage, 1994 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 35 reviews view larger image
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Mohawk, New York, is one of those small towns that lie almost entirely on the wrong side of the tracks. Its citizens, too, have fallen on hard times. Dallas Younger, a star athlete in high school, now drifts from tavern to poker game, losing money, and, inevitably, another set of false teeth. His ex-wife, Anne, is stuck in a losing battle with her mother over the care of her sick father. And their son, Randall, is deliberately neglecting his school work--because in a place like Mohawk it doesn't pay to be too smart.

In Mohawk Richard Russo explores these lives with profound compassion and flint-hard wit. Out of derailed ambitions and old loves, secret hatreds and communal myths, he has created a richly plotted, densely populated, and wonderfully written novel that captures every nuance of America's backyard.

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Lost Opportunities

In the opening the setting is the Mohawk Grill. Its successor establishment is redrawn for the reader near the conclusion, providing a wonderful framing device for the novel. Wild Bill is a patron and a charitable recipient. Harry Saunders is the owner of the grill. Early business is the product of an all-night poker game on the second floor.

Dallas Younger is divorced. His wife Anne and son Randall live apart from him with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Mather Grouse. Anne's counsin, Diane Wood, is not divorced, but she also lives with a parent, her mother.

Anne tells her father she is going to move to Connecticut. Her employer would like it, and Randall's schooling would improve. Anne's father had worked in the leather factory. He had been promoted to foreman but asked to be returned to his former position of worker. He never told anyone the reason he sought to return to his former position. He was distrusted by the others.

Mather Grouse had never really fit in. He had hoped that Anne would be able to get out of Mohawk. (Anne was to hold the same hope for Randall as he grew to be a young man.) When Randall dropped out of college and faced becoming a draft dodger, he wondered what his grandfather, now deceased, would have thought of his action.

Events roar along, carrying everyone with them. Russo does an excellent job.

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Russo is quite brilliant.

"Nobody's Fool", the movie, was my first introduction to anything related to Richard Russo, and it became one of my favorite films.

The HBO movie/mini-series version of "Empire Falls" was my second impression of Russo. Again, very favorable.

So, when I decided to read his work I started at the beginning..."Mohawk".

Having grown up a child of the 70s in Central NY, I can tell you that much of Russo's stylings and characterizations are dead on. As I read, I say to myself "I know these people!"

I will read all his work now. I can't think of any higher testimonial.

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Solid, but...

A solid novel, but short of the standard he was to set later with works like 'Nobody's Fool' and 'Straight Man'.

It isn't hard to see why this was first published by a small house, and only re-issued by a major company once the name Russo became a bankable selling point. Some startling insights and fine turns of phrase, but some clinkers and cliches as well. There is simply too much material, easily enough to stock three full length novels, so we get sketches where we'd like portraits, and the plot doesn't so much wander as careen wildly.

Easy to see how it launched his career, though-- the core Russo's talent is on full display. Every character is treated with respect, even affection.

I'd class it about equal to the over-rated 'Empire Falls', a bit behind the under appreciated 'Straight Man', and well back of 'Nobody's Fool', his quiet masterpiece.

Worth your time if you are already a fan, but not best place to enter his world for the first time.

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So close ...!

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. It has been months since I read anything so technically and literarily (is that even a word?) satisfying.

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 everyone's lives, whether you happen to inhabit a tannery town in PA in the `60s or a suburb of DC in the `90s. 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!

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Don't pass this up en route to Empire Falls

Nowadays, there's so much attention placed on "Empire Falls" that this summertime reading gem gets lost. You can read the other reviews that say this book isn't as epic as that Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

That doesn't mean you should pass on this book.

The first chapter of "Mohawk" drew me in; the diner setting is written with such detail that I felt as though I could've pulled up a stool and ordered a breakfast special myself.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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