false 107821 20 Six years after the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning<i> Empire Falls,</i> Richard Russo returns with a novel that expands even further his widely heralded achievement. Louis Charles (Lucy) Lynch has spent all his sixty years in upstate Thomaston, New York, married to the same woman, Sarah, for forty of them, their son now a grown man. Like his late, beloved father, Lucy is an optimist, though he's had plenty of reasons not to be - chief among them his mother, still indomitably alive. Yet it was her shrewdness, combined with that Lynch optimism, that had propelled them years ago to the right side of the tracks and created an "empire" of convenience stores about to be passed on to the next generation. Lucy and Sarah are also preparing for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Italy, where his oldest friend, a renowned painter, has exiled himself far from anything they'd known in childhood. In fact, the exact nature of their friendship is one of the many mysteries Lucy hopes to untangle in the "history" he's writing of his hometown and family. And with his story interspersed with that of Noonan, the native son who'd fled so long ago, the destinies building up around both of them (and Sarah, too) are relentless, constantly surprising, and utterly revealing. <i>Bridge of Sighs</i> is classic Russo, coursing with small-town rhythms and the claims of family, yet it is brilliantly enlarged by an expatriate whose motivations and experiences - often contrary, sometimes not - prove every bit as mesmerizing as they resonate through these richly different lives. Here is a town, as well as a world, defined by magnificent and nearly devastating contradictions. 6121267 25 9 2007 Bridge of Sighs total:3989|5:854|4:1700|3:1052|2:300|1:83| 3989 14909 6516 1183 5 15 false false Sun Aug 17 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 22 14:39:07 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 13 12:39:35 -0800 2008
I have read all of Richard Russo's books and I have gr...more...]]> 2 9 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 28 21:27:48 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 28 21:38:46 -0700 2007
Once in Lo...more...]]> 5 4 false false Fri Jun 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 06 14:51:27 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 27 11:33:39 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 3 false false Sun Apr 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jan 30 21:14:05 -0800 2008 Sun Apr 27 20:28:00 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 3 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 02 13:33:40 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 02 15:57:55 -0800 2008
I couldn't have been more wrong. Many of the eleme...more...]]> 5 3 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Oct 11 14:29:06 -0700 2007 Wed Nov 28 11:29:44 -0800 2007
some favorite passages/quotes:

...more...]]> 4 4 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Aug 05 10:48:55 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 15 12:44:48 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 4 false false Mon Aug 25 18:04:07 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 14 12:25:17 -0700 2008
1. I like Russo's work a lot, esp. Straight Man, Nobody's Fool, and Risk Pool. Nobody writes about rundown small towns better than Russo. In the three books already mentioned Russo doesn't overshoot his purpose; he's...more...]]> 3 2 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Mar 16 16:38:08 -0700 2008 Mon May 19 19:49:27 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 2 false false Sun Apr 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 12 15:15:47 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 06 10:10:25 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 04 11:45:56 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 04 12:40:43 -0800 2008
As regular readers know, artistic criticism is something fairly new to me (or at least regular artistic critic...more...]]> 4 3 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jan 14 20:26:27 -0800 2008 Tue May 13 17:51:42 -0700 2008
Russo's greatest strength is an ability to create detailed, unique and re...more...]]> 3 2 false false Sun Dec 09 07:20:21 -0800 2007 Sun Dec 09 07:27:27 -0800 2007 The b...more...]]> 3 2 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 10 12:24:48 -0700 2007 Fri Nov 02 14:09:29 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue Aug 12 13:23:50 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 22 18:13:56 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 12 13:23:50 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Nov 22 20:07:12 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 23 04:14:34 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Sat Jan 10 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Dec 03 06:18:57 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 10 08:37:48 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Oct 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 07 14:45:20 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 10 18:34:22 -0700 2008 absolutely brilliant...
russo is very nearly the most important american novelist currently working...

this book is all about the vertiginous...
the deep disorientation and confusion that results from exposure to two very different points of view...
this c...more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Sep 27 16:33:20 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 27 16:36:31 -0700 2008 1
Is this what Richard Russo is trying to tell us in picking out the title of this book? Are you also someone who tries to analyze the title of each book you read as I do? Built in the 16th century in Venice, The Bridge of Sighs is the last thing a prisoner walks over...more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Aug 21 11:13:00 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 21 11:25:45 -0700 2008
Russo explores the relationships of three (sort of four) families in an upper NY textile town. The story takes place as the factory is shutting down, industrial waste is causing widespread cancer, and working class families a...more...]]>