Bridge of Sighs

by Richard Russo
Bridge of Sighs
book data
3,220 ratings, 3.75 average rating, 1,021 reviews (more data...)
edit

published
September 25th 2007 by Knopf

binding
Hardcover, 480 pages

isbn
0375414959    (isbn13: 9780375414954)

description
Six years after the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning Empire Falls, Richard Russo returns with a novel that expands even further his widely heralde...more




Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.


topics  posts  views  last activity   
The Next Best Boo...: What are you reading? 13061 11007 28 minutes ago  
Romance Readers R...: Game: Book Cover Hunt 136 63 5 hours, 26 min ago  
Reading from the ...: What books are you reading? 814 914 13 hours, 0 min ago  

friend reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 5,417)

sort: default (?) | date
filters: all | text-only


Sarahfina
04/22/08
Sarahfina rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in August, 2008
First the bad news: Russo, as one of the Great Male Narcissists (a term coined by D.F. Wallace who did not include Russo in his assessment)has probably been accused of both racism and misogyny and these allegations do have some merit.

I have read all of Richard Russo's books and I have greatly enjoyed them all. But I am troubled by the fact that often, if a female character isn't chasing you with a rolling pin, she's got your dick in her mouth. Crazed harridans and insatiable sluts ma...more
Like this review?   yes   (14 people liked it)
  2 comments

Dorian
10/28/07
Dorian rated it: 2 of 5 stars

Read in October, 2007
Flashback to 1999: setting off on a 30-hour train ride between Halifax and London, ON, I pick up Russo's new novel Straight Man, on the recommendation of a bookseller friend. Enthralled all the way through the Maritimes and Quebec--laughing aloud in that half-empty compartment.

Once in London, I pick up The Risk Pool and Nobody's Fool, two of Russo's earlier books. And love them, esp. Nobody's Fool, which must surely be Russo's best work. A few years later, in Ithaca, NY, I eagerly p...more
Like this review?   yes   (8 people liked it)
  3 comments

Steve
06/06/08
Steve rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in June, 2008
With over 500 pages, and multidimensional profiles covering school days through to later years, a great writer like Russo can give you plenty to chew on. What I appreciated most was the rich contrast in character attitudes. Is it better to be an optimist offering the benefit of the doubt even if naively, or a pessimist giving the detriment of the doubt even if unfairly?

Two of the main characters were artists. This gave Russo the chance to use their works to help interpret the stor...more
Like this review?   yes   (4 people liked it)
  2 comments

Kim
01/30/08
Kim rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in April, 2008
When I finished reading Richard Russo's wonderful novel Empire Falls (for which he won the Pulitzer), I wondered - how will this novelist do this again? Turns out, he just keeps getting better. One thing I've always admired about Russo is his ability to write about small towns in a way that honors the provincial nature of small town life while exploring all of its intricacies and nuances, its complexity and heartache - the way a person can live a wide life in the smallest of ponds. Perhaps th...more
Like this review?   yes   (3 people liked it)
  3 comments

Josh
01/02/08
Josh rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in January, 2008
I was a little apprehensive about this book after reading the press it received. I knew I would enjoy it, but I seeing that involved a middle-aged man reflecting on his life in a dying New England town, I feared a retread of Empire Falls.

I couldn't have been more wrong. Many of the elements you would expect from Russo are there, the quiet politics of small towns, the relationship between parents and children and even the tainted river are all present. But Russo expands on these and b...more
Like this review?   yes   (3 people liked it)
  add a comment

Gunjan
10/11/07
Gunjan rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in November, 2007
recommends it for: anyone ready to devote some time and attention to a story about our future.
what is it about these apparently ordinary people that would make anyone persist in believing them to be extraordinary? and they are. that's really the meat and bones of the story. i urge you to read it if you have the time, interest, and patience.

some favorite passages/quotes:

"The middle, she said, was the real America, the America that mattered, the America that was worth fighting wars to defend. There was just the one problem with being in the fluid middle. You c...more
Like this review?   yes   (3 people liked it)
  add a comment

Mike
08/05/07
Mike rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in August, 2007
recommends it for: Russo fans, definitely; readers of great character fiction; honestly, most anyone
I've been a fan of Russo's from way back, having particularly dug _The Risk Pool_. On the one hand I've always had a homeboy's appreciation for the way he captures upstate NY's rusted-town class divisions and social dynamics. (The guy has a brilliant ear for the very funny meanness between friends & family I recall all too well from high school and every other Thanksgiving.) But, that other hand, he also always surprised me--his characters would reveal in some small, throwaway line a complexi...more
Like this review?   yes   (3 people liked it)
  8 comments

Randomanthony
This might be my longest review ever. Here we go, in bullet points...

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 funny and psychologically incisive without becoming ponderous, although he can be rightfully accused of painting a rosier picture than his settings warrant. Bridge of Sighs, also set in a small town,...more
Like this review?   yes   (2 people liked it)
  3 comments

Beth
03/16/08
Beth rated it: 3 of 5 stars

Read in April, 2008
Russo's story is set in a small, decaying town. His main characters include decent, ineffective men who are trapped there, and smarter women who see the town for what it is, but are equally trapped. He's worked this territory before, and in my opinion, better in other books. An editor could have tightened up the prose and made this an outstanding story.

Even so, the story still drew me in, and sometimes I couldn't put it down. Two boyhood friends are now 60 years old. The narrat...more
Like this review?   yes   (2 people liked it)
  4 comments

D'Anne
03/12/08
D'Anne rated it: 3 of 5 stars

bookshelves: fiction
Read in April, 2008
I really love Richard Russo and really enjoyed this book but felt it went on a little too long at the end -- like a good friend who you love to spend time with but who stays maybe a day longer than he should because as much as you love him you've got work to do. And yet, you can hardly be too upset because this friend says things like:"[T]here is, despite our wild imaginings, only one life. The ghostly others, no matter how real they seem, no matter how badly we need them, are phantoms. The...more
Like this review?   yes   (2 people liked it)
  add a comment

Jason Pettus
02/04/08
Jason Pettus rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in February, 2008
(My full review of this book is much longer than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

As regular readers know, artistic criticism is something fairly new to me (or at least regular artistic criticism is), with the entire thing being as much of a learning process for me as it often is for you; and of all the new things I am learning about the subject these days, one of the most surprising is of...more
Like this review?   yes   (2 people liked it)
  add a comment

Samilja
01/14/08
Samilja rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in May, 2008
As usual, Russo sticks to the proverbial ribs. That is, for me anyway, his stories stay with me. I find myself thinking about the characters long after I've finished the book in question & 'Bridge' is no exception.

Russo's greatest strength is an ability to create detailed, unique and real characters and there are many here. Spanning decades, various stories unfold, featuring a complex crossover of characters and episodes. It's a treat indeed to glimpse one incident from the perspect...more
Like this review?   yes   (2 people liked it)
  1 comment

margueya
12/09/07
margueya rated it: 3 of 5 stars

Hmm. Well, Empire Falls this was not - it lacked the freshness and colorful characters and small town charm, though Russo tried valiantly to capture that in this book - it just felt flat to me somehow, like he knew that he was supposed to be incorporating that but it just wasn't working.
The book was readable and at times engrossing, I can't say I wouldn't recommend it, but I had some issues with it. For one thing, Russo would have some insightful turns of phrase and then make sure to exp...more
Like this review?   yes   (2 people liked it)
  add a comment

megan
10/10/07
megan rated it: 3 of 5 stars

Read in October, 2007
I am a huge fan of Richard Russo, so I wanted to love this one. Although, as usual, Russo paints a vivid picture of small town life, somehow the story never grabbed me. Centered on Lou "Lucy" Lynch, a typical Russo lovable loser, we hear the story of his life in a class-conscious upstate New York town. We also get snippets of the life of his best friend, a painter in Venice who escaped the small town. But the story, while solidly told, is never particularly moving. Nothing much hap...more
Like this review?   yes   (2 people liked it)
  add a comment

Dollie
07/22/08
Dollie rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in August, 2008
recommended to Dollie by: Book Club Choice
I am not sure if it was because I had grown up in the area where this book takes place or if it was just a very good novel but after 528 pages, I still wanted more. I could have followed these lives and the following generations for a long time. I grew up in Troy NY and I noticed Richard Russo grew up in Gloversville, NY so I gather that is why it all felt so authentic. The town was fictional but I sure did recognize it as well as the characters. I have never read Mr. Russo's books before bu...more
Like this review?   yes   (2 people liked it)
  13 comments

Paula
11/22/08
Paula rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Russo is such a pleasure to read. While I don't think this is his best work, it is very good. I loved the picture of post war America. The father especiallly rang true; a simple man who cannot deal with the changes he faces. I thought the wife and her decisions and reactions were right on , but I couldn't quite accept the younger generation. I am sorry but names elude me. The painter as a child made sense, but I couldn't quite accept his transformation into a painter. Maybe a writer. The hero se...more
Like this review?   yes   (1 person liked it)
  1 comment

Bobbi
12/03/08
Bobbi rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in January, 2009
This book was a LONG one, but I really enjoyed it. The story is about a man recalling his childhood growing up in the small upstate NY town of Thomaston. I could relate to the whole "small ethnic town" thing and really took to each one of the characters who were developed extremely well in my opinion. It's complexity actually makes it difficult to write a review because so much happens that I don't know where to begin!

Lou (nickname Lucy) Lynch is a quiet, insecure boy who t...more
Like this review?   yes   (1 person liked it)
  4 comments

Jason
10/07/08
Jason rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 1400030900)

Read in October, 2008
brilliant...
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 concept is explored in so many compelling ways through the juxtaposition of black and white, hope to despair, love to hate...
the idea is made that much more complex by the notion of equivocation....more
Like this review?   yes   (1 person liked it)
  3 comments

Nancy (Hrdcovers)
09/27/08
Nancy (Hrdcovers) rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in January, 2008
BRIDGE OF IMPRISONMENT

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 before reaching his cell. The idea behind the name is that the last view a convict sees before imprisonment is a beautiful Venetian canal which must cause him to sigh at its beauty, never to be seen ...more
Like this review?   yes   (1 person liked it)
  add a comment

Geoff
08/21/08
Geoff rated it: 3 of 5 stars

Again, I wish we could have 1/2 star reviews. I'd rate a 3 1/2.

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 are focused on upward mobility in the post-war economy. This poor economy/American Dream dichotomy is indicative of the multi-faceted outlooks of the protagonists and their families who play supportin...more
Like this review?   yes   (1 person liked it)
  1 comment


« previous 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 270 271


recent status updates | recommend it | blog it

Bridge of Sighs: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries)
Bridge of Sighs (Audio CD)
Bridge of Sighs (Hardcover)
bridge of sighs
Bridge of Sighs







quotes from this book

"I told him the truth, that I loved him and didn't regret anything about our lives together. But do we ever 'tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God' as my father used to say, to those we love? Or even to ourselves? Don't even the best and most fortunate of lives hint at other possibilities, at a different kind of sweetness and, yes, bitterness too? Isn't this why we can't help feeling cheated, even when we know we haven't been?" More quotes...


groups with this book

Constant Reader
BTX & Friends Book Club
Our Book Group
Book 'Em
ReadingGroupGuides.com






Empire Falls (Paperback) by Richard Russo
Straight Man: A Novel (Paperback) by Richard Russo
Nobody's Fool (Paperback) by Richard Russo
Risk Pool (Paperback) by Richard Russo
Mohawk (Hardcover) by Richard Russo

More…