When it comes to his novels, Maine author Richard Russo is often in a New York state of mind.

At least six of his novels are set in depressed and decaying factory towns in upstate New York, inspired by his hometown of Gloversville. His latest book, “Under the Falls,” is set in a crumbling town based on Caroga Lake in the Adirondacks, just a few miles from where he grew up. It comes out Tuesday.

Russo says he’s not completely sure why his imagination finds such fertile ground in New York’s rust belt and has for the entire time he’s been a novelist. He grew up desperately wanting to get out of there, and left Gloversville for good after high school, although as a writer, he’s gone back time and again.

“It should be such an easy question to answer, why these towns appeal to me so much?” said Russo, 77, in his home office in Falmouth. “I guess my novels are place-driven and class-driven, so I can find those elements there. And I can go back to those towns but invent a new one every time I need to.”

Russo first came to Maine in the early 1990s to teach English at Colby College in Waterville and won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2001 novel “Empire Falls,” set in Maine. But the eponymous mill town in that book, while bearing resemblances to Waterville and Skowhegan, was at least partly inspired by Gloversville. He wanted house painter Max Roby, played by Paul Newman in the the HBO miniseries based on the book, to be able to work for wealthy summer folks along the Maine coast.

Russo will be launching his new book at 7 p.m. Tuesday with an event at Print: A Bookstore in Portland, in a conversation with his daughter, Kate Russo. On Wednesday he’ll be at The First Church in Belfast at 7 p.m. for a talk and signing organized by Left Bank Books.

CAN’T ESCAPE TWICE

“Under the Falls” is set in the fictional town of Stone Mountain, which like Caroga Lake, has a sprawling amusement park that’s now closed. Russo went there with his mother as a child and later with high school buddies. The drinking age was 18 then, and Russo remembers driving home from Caroga Lake after last call, “flying down the mountain at unsafe speeds.” In his book, Stone Mountain is also a dangerous place to be driving fast, especially downhill, and that fact is important in the story.

The lead character is Tyler Sinclair, who, like Russo, leaves his New York hometown right after high school. Tyler never says goodbye and has no intention of ever coming back. But nearly two decades later, when he’s the lead singer of a successful rock band called Stone Mountain, Tyler comes back to his hometown to perform a benefit concert for a childhood friend.

Back on Stone Mountain, Tyler discovers some secrets about his friend and other strange happenings in the depressed, poverty-striken town. He also finds a lot of people aren’t happy to see him back, that some begrudge his wealth and fame, especially since many of his songs are about his experiences growing up there. Some feel he’s making money off their pain.

Russo said he’s heard about some folks resenting his writing so much about Gloversville, or basing his stories in similar towns. He says that at first people seemed happy to know that their town was the inspiration for his novels. People seemed to take pride in seeing their home depicted in novels sold around the country. The books also showed the importance of the working class in those towns, “doing work that was absolutely necessary but never well-paid,” said Russo. “Nobody’s Fool,” which is set in a fictionalized version of Gloversville called North Bath, was made into a hit movie starring Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, Melanie Griffith and Bruce Willis.

But when Russo wrote a “warts and all memoir” in 2012 about growing up in Gloversville, called “Elsewhere,” he named the place explicitly and started to hear grumblings.

“People started to say ‘You’ve made a damn fine living for yourself writing about our lives,'” said Russo. “Basically they were saying — and they weren’t wrong — ‘where’s our cut?'”

Unlike Tyler in the book, Russo does go back to Gloversville, and has been involved with various philanthropic and fundraising efforts.

FROM SCRIPT TO PAGE

“Under the Falls” has more elements of a traditional thriller than normally found in Russo’s novels, which are heavy on character development and a sense of place. There’s more mystery too, and the pace is faster. At 235 pages, it’s considerably shorter than many of his books.

Russo had actually started the story of “Under the Falls” during the pandemic as the basis for a possible TV series. He collaborated with three other writers: Jule Selbo; Portland novelist Ron Currie; and Currie’s writing partner Josh Mohr. Russo has written screenplays for TV and films over the years, including the 2005 films “Keeping Mum” with Maggie Smith and Rowan Atkinson and “The Ice Harvest” with John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton. Currie and Mohr are currently writing a Netflix series based on Currie’s Waterville-set novel “The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne.”

Then in 2023, Hollywood writers and actors went on strike, shutting down film and TV production. Once the strike was over, Russo said, the only things getting made were movies or series that had already been in the works. Russo says his agent wasn’t able to find any production companies interested. So one day he decide to make the story into a novel. He asked the other three writers for their permission, and acknowledges them in the book. They made several suggestions that Russo used.

“Most of the time you write a novel, it gets sold, and somebody else writes it as a screenplay,” Russo said.

Russo’s 1997 novel “Straight Man,” a comic/tragic story set on a small college campus, was adapted into an AMC series in 2023 called “Lucky Hank,” and starring Bob Odenkirk, known for “Better Call Saul” and “Breaking Bad.” It lasted one season.

Russo says he has no thoughts of retiring and isn’t sure what else he’d do. He thinks being intellectually curious and engaged could help slow the “inevitable cognitive decline” most people deal with as they get older. Plus, there’s a history of obsessive-compulsive disorder in his family, and he feels like constantly rewriting and reworking sentences is a way he can “impose order” in one aspect of his life.

He recently finished a novella, but would rather not give out details. He doesn’t have a specific idea for his next novel yet, which he says is not ideal.

“It’s driving me kind of crazy because I’m not happy if I’m not working.”