There’s something about summer reading that begs for a little nostalgia. In Under the Falls, the latest novel from Pulitzer-winner Richard Russo, a dash of nostalgia is tempered with a bucket of reckoning.
Tyler Sinclair fled his dead-end small town, and his abusive home within it, at eighteen and didn’t look back. At least, not until a plea from an old friend brought him back eighteen years later. Now a world-famous singer, he brings his band for a benefit concert for Doc, who became disabled through an accident for which some old-timers still blame Tyler. It’s that pet grudge, plus general resentment that Tyler discarded Stone Mountain so easily, that makes the benefit concert break out in a riot even before the news comes that Doc has died suddenly. The police chief and another member of the old gang, Curt, and his young officer, Deb, have their hands full as Tyler and his band leave. But the limo doesn’t make it far before it plunges down an embankment, killing most of the band and critically injuring Tyler.
As Tyler slowly recovers, Deb starts hearing rumors that there’s more going on in Stone Mountain than the usual small-town fare, and she’s struggling to shake doubts about the official story of the limo’s totally accidental crash. Meanwhile, the combination of Doc’s death and Tyler’s return and injury bring the long-simmering problems between Curt and his wife, Freddi, to a boil. And the couple’s only child, Curtis Jr, is behaving strangely for reasons Curt can’t even begin to fathom. The sooner Tyler is well and leaves again, it seems, the better, but there are forces that aim to keep him in Stone Mountain whether anyone likes it or not.
The ties that once bound Tyler, Doc, Curt, and Freddi have warped and frayed, and that’s true both of the ones thought to have broken and the ones that should have stayed strong over the years. Curt and Freddi’s marriage seems like it’s been hell on earth for both of them for half of their lives. With Freddi working for years as Doc’s personal aide, it doesn’t surprise Curt that those two developed a strong relationship of their own, though he’s unprepared for the full truth. The full truth of what happened between Freddi and Tyler as teenagers is another matter entirely, and one that time has only soured and sharpened.
I discovered Russo with his 2020 novel, Chances Are…, and was captivated by his nuanced characters and complex situations, all woven deftly together with compelling prose. Happily, his prose is as strong as ever in Under the Falls. This was especially on display in the passages from Tyler’s point of view after the crash that made me feel like I was swimming in that same haze of injury and surgery and medicine. My frustration was that there wasn’t enough of it; Under the Falls is a slim book, just over 200 pages. While that makes it ideal for reading at the airport or lounging on the beach, it also meant there wasn’t enough of that prose, or of the plot and characters it supported.
We’re told Doc’s death is from natural causes; I fully expected there to be a more complicated truth revealed later, something that would bring more blame or guilt that would further complicate Tyler’s coming to terms with his past and to the reconciliation with Curt and Freddi. Likewise, the hidden link between Freddi and Tyler is strongly implied early enough to be a source of growing tension as Curt reconnects with Tyler, only to be parried away at the last minute. Freddi’s feelings on the matter, on the other hand, have become all-consuming to the point that they overtake virtually every other character trait. And Curtis Jr sits on the margins.
Deb is the most comfortable character in this cast, and fortunately we do spend a lot of the time in her point of view. She’s got a good head on her shoulders and has a strong relationship with her mother, even when the two disagree on…well, most things these days, it seems. Her yearning for a mentor (or father figure) that leads her to some real foolishness at times acts as the kind of character complication that makes a compelling read.
Makes you want more of that.
Under the Falls sets up complex relationships, old hurts, clashing motivations, and a town full of secrets but doesn’t give them time to live up to their potential. Its quality as a quick read comes at the expense of nuance and character depth, and that’s a shame. I’d have loved to see what more time in Stone Mountain would have been like. I’d have loved to feel more conflicted about the people who inhabited it. Past work demonstrates that all of that would have been well within Russo’s wheelhouse. Under the Falls is still one of the better novels I’ve read this summer, but the missed opportunities also make it one of the most frustrating ones.
Ring Reads 