Publication Order of Nobody’s Fool Books
| Nobody’s Fool | 1993 |
| Everybody’s Fool | 2016 |
| Somebody’s Fool | 2023 |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| Mohawk | 1986 |
| The Risk Pool | 1988 |
| Straight Man | 1997 |
| Empire Falls | 2001 |
| Bridge of Sighs | 2007 |
| That Old Cape Magic | 2009 |
| Chances Are... | 2019 |
| Under the Falls | 2026 |
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
| Sh*tshow | 2019 |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
| The Whore’s Child and Other Stories | 2002 |
| Interventions | 2012 |
| Trajectory | 2017 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Elsewhere: A Memoir | 2012 |
| The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers and Life | 2018 |
| Marriage Story: An American Memoir | 2021 |
| Triage: On Reading, Writing, and the Interior Life | 2022 |
| Life and Art: Essays | 2025 |
About Richard Russo
Richard Russo is an American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter who won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for “Empire Falls”. He is known for realistic depictions of small-town life in the north-eastern United States, particularly Maine, Pennsylvania and his native upstate New York.
Russo was born on 15 July 1949 in Johnstown, New York, and raised in nearby Gloversville. His father was a highway worker, and during summer breaks from college the two worked together on a road crew. He studied at the University of Arizona from 1967 to 1979, taking a bachelor’s degree, a Master of Fine Arts and a doctorate with a dissertation on the early American writer Charles Brockden Brown. He was teaching in the English department at Southern Illinois University Carbondale when his first novel, “Mohawk”, was published in 1986. He later taught at Colby College in Maine, retiring in 1996 to write full time.
“Nobody’s Fool” (1993) was filmed in 1994 by the director Robert Benton, with Paul Newman in the lead. Russo returned to its setting in “Everybody’s Fool” (2016) and “Somebody’s Fool” (2023), and the three books are sometimes called the North Bath Trilogy. “Empire Falls” (2001) follows Miles Roby, who runs the Empire Grill in a declining mill town. Russo wrote the teleplay for the HBO adaptation himself. “Straight Man” (1997), about a writing teacher and one-time novelist, became the AMC television series “Lucky Hank”, starring Bob Odenkirk, in 2023.
As a screenwriter he co-wrote the 1998 film “Twilight” with Benton and has credits on “The Ice Harvest” and “Keeping Mum” (both 2005). Away from the novels he has published the story collections “The Whore’s Child and Other Stories” and “Trajectory”, the memoir “Elsewhere” and two books of essays, “The Destiny Thief” and “Life and Art”.
His most recent novel is “Under the Falls”, published by Knopf in August 2026. It concerns Tyler Sinclair, the frontman of a famous band, who goes back to his home town of Stone Mountain after eighteen years away to play a benefit concert. Russo and his wife, Barbara, live in Portland, Maine.
Photo: Camille Gévaudan (K’m), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).