Fourth generation male heir to the Whiting fortune, C.B. is ill suited to assume a leadership role in the essential ownership of the inland Maine town of Empire Falls. C.B. makes his first appearance in the Prologue, then becomes a shadowy ghost playing a major part in the lives of contemporary residents of the town. At heart, C.B. is a poet and artist-albeit a poor one-who longs for the slower, simpler life in Mexico where he spent several years as a young man. C.B. carries on the tradition of Whiting males by marrying Francine, whom he is destined to grow to hate. Both his grandfather and great-grandfather thought about killing their wives, and his great-grandfather actually tried to beat his wife to death with a shovel. C.B. knows even before he marries Francine that.....
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