Customer Reviews
Haunting 
2008-11-12
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.
I loved this book 
2008-11-05
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.
boring 
2008-11-01
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!
With a wry smile 2008-10-29
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"
Great selection for a book discussion group 2008-10-21
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.
Long but interesting 2008-10-19
Louis Charles Lynch (also known as Lucy) is sixty years old and has lived in Thomaston, New York, his entire life. He and Sarah, his wife of forty years, are about to embark on a vacation to Italy. Lucy's oldest friend, once a rival for his wife's affection, leads a life in Venice far removed from Thomaston. Perhaps for this reason Lucy is writing the story of his town, his family, and his own life that makes up this rich and mesmerizing novel, interspersed with that of the native son who left so long ago and has never looked back.
Bridge of Sighs, from the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
Empire Falls, is a moving novel about small-town America that expands Russo's widely heralded achievement in ways both familiar and astonishing.
Rich and velvety 2008-09-30
You can complain all you want but this was a strikingly rich and smooth dessert of a read. I loved it until the end which I felt was just a bit forced: almost as if Mr. Russo plunged into the hat of improbable endings and out popped "adopts an underprivileged teenage girl." Oh well, it didn't really matter; the journey was wonderful. Russo's description of small-town upstate New York life is absolutely masterful - and his characters also totally pitch perfect. Another one, please!
A Long Train of a Story 
2008-09-17
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.
Bridge of Sights 2008-09-17
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'
brilliant writing 2008-09-14
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.
