Mohawk

Mohawk (1986) is the debut novel by American author Richard Russo, who later won a Pulitzer Prize for his Empire Falls (2001). Plot The book is set in Mohawk, an upstate New York mill town in a decline following that of its leather tanning industry. The Mohawk Grill, a diner run by Harry Saunders, is featured. The novel explores the lives of two intersecting families, the Grouses and the Gaffneys. Anne Grouse is the 40-year-old daughter of Mather Grouse and his wife, and lives with her parents and son Randall after her divorce from Dallas Younger, her high-school sweetheart. He is a good-hearted but unreliable auto-mechanic. Anne is in love with Dan, the husband of her cousin Diana. He became paralyzed after a car accident. The relationship between Mather and fellow leather-worker Rory Gaffney provides tension and suspense in the story.