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Bridge of Sighs is not my favorite Richard Russo book. That would be Empire Falls. But this book might be worth your time just to meet the characters Russo fashions seemingly ex nihillo from the clay of his imagination. Louis Charles Lynch, known most of his life as Lucy (this nickname a consequence of an elementary school teacher making the grave mistake of reading his name from the class list as Lou C. Lynch) is writing the story of his life in Thomaston, “scanning his past” for shapes and meanings as he puts it. In Empire Falls, for which Russo won the Pulitzer, it was the dialogue that blew me away. Believable dialogue that moved the story forward with succinct intensity. In Bridge of Sighs, though I found the story stalling now and then, I kept reading because Russo’s exquisite ability create characters that live and breathe. We’ve met them before, or someone very like them. Which is why we so often the shapes and meaning of their stories inform ours. Lucy’s is the primary voice throughout the novel, as he attempts to get down, while he can, his best recollections of his past. But we also meet and hear occasionally from Sarah, his wife, whose permanent affection he may have won through a small twist of fate from his best friend Bobby Marconi. And Bobby’s voice (now professionally called Noonan as artist in Venice)which alternates with Lucy’s. Bobby’s voice is the one that serves as a corrective to Lucy’s sometimes naïve assessment of people and incidents. Bobby’s voice that shows us the dark underside of Thomaston. If there were an award for titles – Russo should get one. Brilliantly apt this title. Bridge of Sighs is the name given to a bridge in Florence across which those condemned to die walked to their death. Noonan will name an important painting Bridge of Sighs. But the title has more to do I think with understanding that all of us walk across such a bridge. We, like Lucy and Sarah and Bobby and the others, are making our way across the bridge of life to the inevitability of our ends. And then there is that word “sighs” which reminds us that all of our lives are laced with sighs – of regrets, of roads not taken, but also with sighs of joy. In the end, Russo clears up a mystery and barrels to an unexpected conclusion. But one that satisfied, even as it made me “sigh.” <back to list |
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