Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Empire Falls" takes readers into a struggling blue-collar town in Maine. The textile factories have been shut down and the residents are waiting for a financial savior. The book's main character is Miles Roby. He's been managing "The Empire Grill" for 20 years and is hoping the town's matriarch will die soon and leave him the restaurant. Miles is struggling with a pending divorce, a teenage daughter and a father who ignores conventional grooming and manners. Russo told Minnesota Public Radio's Greta Cunningham, the book was influenced by a Maine college town in which he once lived.