Mohawk was published as a Vintage Contemporaries paperback original in 1986, Russo’s debut novel. The paperback-original format (then a prestigious series that also launched Jay McInerney, Donna Tartt, and others) meant the book received literary attention without the commercial pressure of a hardcover release.
Mohawk is a small upstate New York town built around a leather tannery that is now closed — the classic American story of industrial decline. The town’s working-class families are connected by proximity, history, and the shared experience of diminishing expectations: the fathers drank, the sons drink, and the grandchildren will probably leave. Russo’s canvas includes the Grouses (Dallas, a young man trying to decide whether to stay or go; his mother Anne, trying to survive a bad marriage), the Gaffneys (Wild Bill, a charming drunk whose recklessness has consequences), and the owners and managers whose decisions closed the factory and destroyed the community.
Russo’s method — which would become more refined in subsequent novels but is already present here — is to move between characters without hierarchy, giving each a full interior life regardless of their social position. The janitor has as much psychological reality as the factory owner; the waitress is as complex as the lawyer. This democratic attention to character is Russo’s deepest moral commitment.
The novel is darker than Russo’s later work (less comedy, more despair) but already demonstrates his ability to find dignity in lives that the larger world considers negligible.
Collecting Mohawk
First edition (Vintage Contemporaries, New York, 1986): Softcover original.
Market values:
- First printing (Vintage Contemporaries): $15–$40
- Signed first printing: $30–$80