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Bridge of Sighs
by Richard Russo
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Edition: Hardcover
Publication Date: September 25, 2007
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0375414959
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 52931
Average Customer Rating: 
List price: $26.95
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Showing page 1 of 20
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Reviews
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 Haunting, November 12, 2008
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As a Richard Russo fan (I've read everything he's written), I was dumbfounded by this book at times.
Unlike Empire Falls, the Bridge of Sighs takes long, rambling detours through story and emotion. I found myself at times saying, "Okay, already. Get on with it." I also found myself absolutely intrigued by Russo's descriptions of the characters' interior lives and his incisive connections between the seemingly disconnected and mundane goings on in everyone's lives.
I finished the book a week ago but I'm still haunted. An amazing book.
Russo keeps the reader on his toes by going from first-person present tense, first-person past tense, third-person present tense, and third-person past tense. And he intertwines them closely enough at times that I had to stop and think about where I was in time.
A fabulous read. Highly recommended.
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 I loved this book, November 5, 2008
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This is the best book I have read in a long time. I think I liked it better than "Empire Falls." It is a book that leaves you examining the pattern on the carpet of your own life.
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 boring, November 1, 2008
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very slow, I stopped several times and forced myself to come back to it. Largely unbelievable. A terrible picture of the mother/grandmother (Tessa)who can do nothing right, and central parts for these backward men (3 generations)who can do nothing wrong. Very sexist, women are to be suspected of almost everything. A dreadful saga!
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With a wry smile, October 29, 2008
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The main narrative is an autobiography of Louis C Lynch, who is known as Lucy and is such a nice guy that he is suspected of being gay. This is interspersed with story from the view point of his wife Sarah and his old friend Noonan, who has escaped Thomaston, their benighted small town in upstate New York, to become a big time artist. Lou's autobiography goes back for most of the time to their teenage years in Thomaston, a place blighted by oncogenic decaying industries and racist, homophobic bullies.
It is strongly plotted and an absorbing read but I was a little disappointed. Because of the setting and the literary plaudits, including a Pulitzer Prize, that put him in the category of Raymond Carver and Richard Ford and Joyce Carol Oates, I had been expecting dirty realism and minimalism, but I found Russo to be long-winded. He uses lengthy stretches of interior monolog instead of dialog and does a lot of telling instead of showing. Clichés abound. Characters speak, on more than one occasion, "with a wry smile." The black characters, and only the black characters, have their dialect rendered phonetically, with speech such as "Lease you ain't loss your mind completely"
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Great selection for a book discussion group, October 21, 2008
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This is another Russo novel featuring well-rounded characters is realistic situations. There is hope, despair, humor and fine observations of everyday life throughout the wonderful novel. A great read and a good choice for a book discussion group.
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Reviews
