Under the Falls by Richard Russo.jpg
Under the Falls by Richard Russo.jpg

Under the Falls by Richard Russo

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Hardcover:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls returns with a spellbinding page-turner about a crime in a small town that exposes long-held secrets and betrayals among a group of lifelong friends.

When Tyler Sinclair left Stone Mountain at eighteen, he had no plans of returning. With only a duffel bag full of clothes, a few bucks stolen from his father's dresser, and a guitar, his most prized possession, Tyler disappeared without so much as a goodbye. Eighteen years later, Tyler, now the frontman of a famous band aptly named Stone Mountain, finds himself returning to his hometown for a one-night-only benefit concert to support his old friend, Doc, who lost feeling in his legs following a childhood accident. As Tyler ascends the mountain, memories of his childhood come rushing back—memories of his abusive father and despondent mother, of the friends he left behind—and he quickly learns that, for many people on Stone Mountain, the past does not feel like so long ago, and not everyone has been eagerly awaiting Tyler's return.

At the concert, resentment simmers just beneath the surface, and Tyler finds himself confronted with faces new and old: there's Curt, Tyler's childhood best friend, now Stone Mountain's chief of police, and his star officer, Deb, an out-of-towner who may have bitten off more than she can chew by accepting a job in Stone Mountain. And then there's Freddi, Curt's wife and Tyler's former lover, a woman whose questionable dealings and fraught history with Tyler will become the catalyst for a tragedy that will upend each of their lives and threaten to validate Tyler's worst fear: that "Stone Mountain is the kind of place you might escape from once, if you're lucky, but not twice."

Under the Falls is at once a propulsive thriller, a gut-wrenching portrait of a tight-knit rural community undone by the sins of its past, and an unflinchingly honest depiction of how porous the line between right and wrong, good versus evil, can become. This is a stunning, deeply empathetic novel, one that takes Russo's penchant for character-driven drama to thrilling new heights.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls returns with a spellbinding page-turner about a crime in a small town that exposes long-held secrets and betrayals among a group of lifelong friends.

When Tyler Sinclair left Stone Mountain at eighteen, he had no plans of returning. With only a duffel bag full of clothes, a few bucks stolen from his father's dresser, and a guitar, his most prized possession, Tyler disappeared without so much as a goodbye. Eighteen years later, Tyler, now the frontman of a famous band aptly named Stone Mountain, finds himself returning to his hometown for a one-night-only benefit concert to support his old friend, Doc, who lost feeling in his legs following a childhood accident. As Tyler ascends the mountain, memories of his childhood come rushing back—memories of his abusive father and despondent mother, of the friends he left behind—and he quickly learns that, for many people on Stone Mountain, the past does not feel like so long ago, and not everyone has been eagerly awaiting Tyler's return.

At the concert, resentment simmers just beneath the surface, and Tyler finds himself confronted with faces new and old: there's Curt, Tyler's childhood best friend, now Stone Mountain's chief of police, and his star officer, Deb, an out-of-towner who may have bitten off more than she can chew by accepting a job in Stone Mountain. And then there's Freddi, Curt's wife and Tyler's former lover, a woman whose questionable dealings and fraught history with Tyler will become the catalyst for a tragedy that will upend each of their lives and threaten to validate Tyler's worst fear: that "Stone Mountain is the kind of place you might escape from once, if you're lucky, but not twice."

Under the Falls is at once a propulsive thriller, a gut-wrenching portrait of a tight-knit rural community undone by the sins of its past, and an unflinchingly honest depiction of how porous the line between right and wrong, good versus evil, can become. This is a stunning, deeply empathetic novel, one that takes Russo's penchant for character-driven drama to thrilling new heights.

  • Publisher: Knopf

    Title: Under the Falls

    Author: Richard Russo

    On Sale Date: August 11, 2026

    ISBN 13: 9780593805107

    ISBN 10: 0593805100

    Format: Hardcover

    Retail Price: $30.00

    BISAC: Literary Fiction

    Page Count: 256 pages

    Dimensions: 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches

  • Richard Russo is the author of ten novels, including Somebody's Fool and Everybody's Fool. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2002 for Empire Falls, and his novel Straight Man was adapted into the television series Lucky Hank. He lives in Portland, Maine.

  • Critics are calling it brisk, taut, tense:

    • "Chronicling the world of working-class America." — Maureen Corrigan, NPR

    • "Taut and tense." — AirMail

    • "A slow-burning, twisty testament to the axiom 'you can't go home again.'" — People

    • "An unusually brisk thriller that plunges into Russo's signature exploration of small-town decline." — Ron Charles

This book is for you if

  • You've read Richard Russo before and know he can turn small-town gossip into real dread.

  • You want a homecoming story where the reunion goes wrong in slow motion.

  • You like your thrillers character-driven, with the crime almost secondary to the guilt.

  • You're interested in what happens to a band of childhood friends after eighteen years apart.

  • You want a novel willing to take its time getting to the tragedy — and earn it.

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