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A Long Train of a Story September 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

Having enjoyed Russo's novel, Empire Falls, I decided to read deeper into his list by picking up The Bridge of Sighs. The book is one long train running. Like a train, it takes a while to get up to speed. Also like a train, it has many compartments. It starts with a first-person narrative as one of the main characters (a man who has had the nickname "Lucy" since first grade) writes a memoir mixed with a town history. The story than skips to his boyhood friend ("Noonan"), who left town at the end of high school and has never returned. This sets up the central framework of the book.

Through the course of the narrative, the reader meets most everyone in the small town of Thomastown, New York. Lucy and his relationships reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly of life in a one-company town. His naive father, his prescient mother, his rascally uncle, are the early people in his life. However, as he grows up he exists in a decaying place. Ultimately, he and Noonan part a couple of times, the second time for good when Noonan has to escape the law.

Like Empire Falls, this Russo book pries into the deepest recesses of people's lives. He changes perspective in order to reveal different points of view of the same incident. This is where the story can be very powerful. However, at times the repetition grows tedious. Either way, Russo will take you on a long ride that can be insightful and enjoyable.

3 out of 5 stars

Bridge of Sights September 17, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful

BRIDGE OF SIGHTS by Richard Russo

Review by Carlo Gabbi Author of `An Amazing Story'

A Complete disappointment.

I bought Mr. Russo's book, The Bridge of Sights, knowing that Mr. Russo won a Pulitzer Prize with Empire Falls. I had the impression that this novel, The Bridge of Sights, had something to do with people living in Venice, and I wanted to read this book because this city is particularly dear to me with many happy memories from the past.

I found Mr. Russo a talented skilled writer and I wish to have his capacities in writing. Unfortunately in this novel he is well below any expectation.
`Bridge of Sights' is disappointing and extremely too long. Only the last fifty pages are conclusive, while the rest of the narrative is wasted into unnecessary and a too long descriptions of life in a country town and its inhabitants. Most likely I missed out what Mr. Russo was trying to present in this particular country life.
I found the narrative lacks of action, and for this reason, for too many times I jumped to the end of the chapter and not even the few events in Venice were able to raise emotions of pleasure in me.
In fact I only partially read this long non convincing story, which is going on for five hundred pages under a beautiful title, The Bridge of Sights, but in a not convincing way.

I give Mr. Russo five stars for his writing skill, but only two stars for don't be able to deliver to the readers the expected trilling emotions.

Carlo Gabbi Author of `An Amazing Story'

5 out of 5 stars

brilliant writing September 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I tire of hearing "this is a page turner" because usually I discover that I can actually put the page-turner books down for a few minutes. Well, that has not been true for Bridge of Sighs. I have read hundreds of novels, and this is the one I would most want with me were I washed up by a hurricane--likely here in Miami Beach--onto some piece of lonely island. This is truly brilliant writing with some of the most delicious characters I have ever met. The journey toward so many is so well worth it. I an English teacher, now teaching college writing. So I was somewhat interested in getting to meet Mr. Berg, a man who is alluded to occasionally during the first three hundred-plus pages (yes, this is a long novel). He is writing a novel (I have done that). But what I met and what I expected to meet was such a surprise. My stomach hurt when I entered his classroom--Honors English--with the cast of characters I had come to know and love, Lou (Lucy), Sarah (Mr. Berg's daughter), Perry, Three Mock, and Noonan among others. Oh, my, I have been outrageous I suspect in the classroom. But Berg way out does me.
The novel is set in a real town on Long Island (the name is anyway), but transported to up-state New York. It is a story of complex people who live both simple and complex lives. And I did not want once to put this novel down.

5 out of 5 stars

Life: It is what it is (4.5 *s) September 10, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

The author has created yet another melancholic and sympathetic, multi-generational story of a middle-aged man, his family, and relevant others in a small town in New York. The story is told from the perspective of Louis C. Lynch (called Lucy much to his chagrin), now sixty, as he is writing a history of his life in Thomaston, NY, just before he and his wife of over forty years, Sarah, embark on a trip to Italy to visit Bobby Marconi, now named Robert Noonan, a childhood friend of them both and now a world-renown painter.

The book is a slow-moving, yet prescient, look at families and personalities and how all of that is played out, in some ways predictably yet with the possibility that frailties and fault lines can have repercussions, perhaps lying dormant for years. The central location around which the story revolves is a small corner market, Ikey's, that Lucy's father bought when home milk delivery went the way of the ice truck. It took a man of great optimism, if not a generous dose of willful ignorance, to take that step when supermarkets were forcing the closure of such stores. Lucy is much like his father: big, gregarious, and optimistic; yet, his neediness and self-doubt need reassurance. Bobby, on the other hand, living in a violent family, though more verbal than physical, has an independence and fearlessness that both attracts and repels others. Sarah, the product of a marriage that could not withstand the incompatibilities of a passionate, artistic mother and pedantic father, introduces a tension that hovers beneath the surface, as she has feelings for both Bobby and Lucy.

The first half of the book moves rather slowly as the pressures of the economic and social differentials of Thomaston's West End working class, the East side middle-class, and the upper class of the Boroughs are examined as they impact the Lynch and Marconi families. In keeping with the insularity of the town, larger social issues, like race or sixties' protests, scarcely make an appearance, except for one unfortunate episode. The key period of Lucy's and the author's story is the senior year of high school for Lucy, Bobby, and Sarah. The collapse of a brief rapprochement of Bobby with his father, the tragic death of Sarah's mother, and the constant pull of Ikey's on Lucy propel these characters onto life paths that both meet and diverge. A high school honors English class taught by Sarah's self-destructive father is an eye-opening and transforming experience in a sea of convention.

The author shows life in all of its complexity and struggles. Perhaps one would hope for better resolutions, more finality; but that often is not in the cards. Choices are made; opportunities are missed. Sometimes we try to rewrite those choices. But can we? Is character destiny? These realities are what the author is exploring. Yes, the book is long and perhaps we may desire different outcomes. But as in life, it is what it is. Read it, ponder, and enjoy.

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