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Review
"A magnificent, bighearted new novel [and] an astounding achievement. . . . A masterpiece."
--"The Boston Globe"
"A story of constantly evolving complexity and depth. . . . ["Bridge of Sighs" is] Russo's most intricate, multifaceted novel . . . enormous and enormously moving."
--"The Washington Post Book World"
"A novel of great warmth, charm and intimacy . . . richly evocative and beautifully wrought."
--"The New York Times"
"[Russo's] most ambitious and best work."
--"USA Today"
--"The Boston Globe"
"A story of constantly evolving complexity and depth. . . . ["Bridge of Sighs" is] Russo's most intricate, multifaceted novel . . . enormous and enormously moving."
--"The Washington Post Book World"
"A novel of great warmth, charm and intimacy . . . richly evocative and beautifully wrought."
--"The New York Times"
"[Russo's] most ambitious and best work."
--"USA Today"
Marie Claire
`Russo's state-of-the-nation novel is a complex read, but totally engrossing'
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I never doubted when I started reading that this was a good book. It had all the necessary ingredients; good writing , engaging story full of likeable characters, interesting insights into their psychological make up, enough pages to be sure that we would really know the characters by the time we left them...And yet, at times, reading it would gently send me to sleep! However once I reached the middle I stopped feeling sleepy and finished it in two days. On the whole it is a book I would not hesitate to recommend. It will not be the best book you have ever read but it will give you a non-negligible amount of pleasure, and you will spend a good many hours with characters who ring true and whose foibles are all so human, easily recognisable in many of us but made more interesting by their transposition into good quality fiction.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have read all of Richard Russo's books after being passed 'Empire Falls' by my dad, and then being a Russo fan from that point on. I must confess I that I did buy this book hoping that it would be as laugh out loud funny as I found 'Empire Falls' and 'The Straight Man' (my favourite of all his novels).
Although the humour was more in the study of the 'human condition' as I think one of the other reviewers refers to it, the book was no less enjoyable for it. For a book of this length to be such an easy read, and for the characters to stay with you once you have closed the cover is a mark of its merits I think.
I read this book on holiday and so finished it in 2 days, but even when I had moved on to my next holiday read I still found myself wondering what the characters in 'Bridge of Sighs' were doing. I love the way Russo paints America and would recommend this particular book to anyone who enjoys the type of book which immerses you in someone else's life, and which lets you have a little bit of escapism.
Although the humour was more in the study of the 'human condition' as I think one of the other reviewers refers to it, the book was no less enjoyable for it. For a book of this length to be such an easy read, and for the characters to stay with you once you have closed the cover is a mark of its merits I think.
I read this book on holiday and so finished it in 2 days, but even when I had moved on to my next holiday read I still found myself wondering what the characters in 'Bridge of Sighs' were doing. I love the way Russo paints America and would recommend this particular book to anyone who enjoys the type of book which immerses you in someone else's life, and which lets you have a little bit of escapism.
Format:Paperback
Richard Russo's 2007 novel Bridge Of Sighs is an epic tale of the interwoven lives of three families (the Steins, the Bergers and the Marconis) growing up in upstate New York in the town of Thomaston. But whilst Russo has, somewhat unusually for him, drawn his novel on a grand scale, taking in a timeframe of around fifty years and including a wide cast of characters, Bridge Of Sighs continues to demonstrate Russo's brilliant powers of compelling and insightful characterisation, an ability in which he is, for me, unsurpassed among current novelists.
In Bridge Of Sighs, Russo skilfully intercuts the childhood lives of main protagonists Lou C. ('Lucy') Lynch and Bobby Marconi, whose families are of Irish and Italian descent respectively, with their more distant and fractured relationships 50 years on. Russo's storytelling, particularly in these childhood sections is full of exquisite prose and poignant and tragic tales, and ranks with some of the finest writing in I've read in this field - for example, the likes of Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird and, more recently Donna Tartt's My Little Friend.
Russo creates his fictional world in such a loving and detailed manner that as readers we come to identify with his main characters and feel empathy for them, whether they be slow-witted, cynical, self-deludingly optimistic, arrogant, bullying or vulnerable. As with his other works, Russo's novel is set in the modern, real world, but is marked with very few external historic events, thereby giving it a timeless quality. However, that is not to say that Russo does not address real (and current) social issues. In Bridge Of Sighs, he variously addresses bullying (both in childhood and marital settings), racism, family loss (death and illness), social class divisions and corporate/environmental exploitation - and each in his own unique, and subtle, way.
Another must read novel from this master of the form.
In Bridge Of Sighs, Russo skilfully intercuts the childhood lives of main protagonists Lou C. ('Lucy') Lynch and Bobby Marconi, whose families are of Irish and Italian descent respectively, with their more distant and fractured relationships 50 years on. Russo's storytelling, particularly in these childhood sections is full of exquisite prose and poignant and tragic tales, and ranks with some of the finest writing in I've read in this field - for example, the likes of Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird and, more recently Donna Tartt's My Little Friend.
Russo creates his fictional world in such a loving and detailed manner that as readers we come to identify with his main characters and feel empathy for them, whether they be slow-witted, cynical, self-deludingly optimistic, arrogant, bullying or vulnerable. As with his other works, Russo's novel is set in the modern, real world, but is marked with very few external historic events, thereby giving it a timeless quality. However, that is not to say that Russo does not address real (and current) social issues. In Bridge Of Sighs, he variously addresses bullying (both in childhood and marital settings), racism, family loss (death and illness), social class divisions and corporate/environmental exploitation - and each in his own unique, and subtle, way.
Another must read novel from this master of the form.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A long slow masterpiece
Unless you are fascinated by small town life in upstate New York, this is a book whose pace is likely to feel - at times - rather slow. Read more
Published 5 months ago by J. H. Bretts
Early bath
I don't often cast a book aside after one chapter but I just couldn't go on with this one. The writing style is so dull. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Gargoyle
Beautifully written
Bridge of Sighs sucks you in to a world where small things happen and ordinary people become as real as the ones you live with. Read more
Published on 8 Nov 2009 by B. Kelly
Mmmm - (sighs)
This book started with a heavy handicap, or several: its door-stopping
weight; its cover; its title, which seemed to me to pander to the American-fascination-with-Venice... Read more
weight; its cover; its title, which seemed to me to pander to the American-fascination-with-Venice... Read more
Published on 11 May 2009 by riviera writer
Glorious
This one one of those novels you can just wallow in for days. Richard Russo creates a perfect portrait of an imperfect world, showing the relationships between parent and child,... Read more
Published on 5 April 2009 by herladyship
Who is this guy?
Never heard of him or the book. I was sent it to review on the Simon Mayo book program and was blown away. If you like John Irving or Robertson Davies then you will love it. Read more
Published on 13 Dec 2007 by Mr. Simon Clarke
Russo does it again
Why Richard Russo isn't better known is beyond me - his books have been uniformly superb right from the start, and "Bridge of Sighs" is no exception. Read more
Published on 12 Nov 2007 by Peter Lee
Been A Long Time Crossing Bridge of Sighs
"The sun don't shine
The moon don't move the tides,
to wash me clean
Sun don't shine
The moon don't move the tides,
to wash me clean
Why so... Read more
The moon don't move the tides,
to wash me clean
Sun don't shine
The moon don't move the tides,
to wash me clean
Why so... Read more
Published on 13 Oct 2007 by prisrob
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