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Chris Johnson, June 3, 2008

Richard Russo continues to explore the interactions between love, friendship, and family. I think this is his most ambitious book so far, and I give him full marks for challenging himself and his readers. The Bridge of Sighs is a bridge in Venice over which prisoners used to pass on their way to prison, often seeing Venice for the last time. Russo skillfully manages this as a metaphor throughout the book, while also pulling together apparently independent threads of narrative. The first half of the book is a dead-on description of the trials of junior high school in '50s - '70s America, which had me squirming with recognition, and was the highlight of the book for me.

Russo chose as his primary narrative the first-person account of Lou C. Lynch. In keeping with the character's personality, the writing is generally plain, straightforward prose. In one sense, this is a real accomplishment because it so perfectly fits the character. On the other hand, as others have commented, it makes for slow going at times. Not all of the book is narrated by Lynch. Parts of the book feature an omniscient narrator (or two, I sometimes felt - a Thomaston narrator and a Noonan narrator). This shifting perspective is necessary for the plot, but is sometimes awkward. Unlike Russo's other novels, the ending of Bridge of Sighs seemed aimless to me and left me disappointed. If you've read and enjoyed any of his other books, you should read Bridge of Sighs. If you are new to Richard Russo, I would recommend Nobody's Fool or Empire Falls as a better place to start.

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