Book Review: Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo - Page 3

That was where Noonan used his 60-year-old hindsight to see what had eluded him in the past, as he more fully perceives the narrative of life as rendered by Russo, replete with schoolyard brawls, night terrors and spells, illness and initiations, homosexual advances, loveless seductions, racial tensions — all incidents split onto two tracks running closely parallel: "He and his friends were on one, their parents on another, and neither group realized until it was too late that the tracks convergence in the distance was no optical illusion. The Marcos, the Lynches ... and the Bergs. Not one of those families would emerge unscathed from the collision."

But some repercussions may be fully determined with just a cursory assessment. At one point in Bridge of Sighs, Lou ponders the prospect of crawling from the wreckage as he has occasion to test an endurance he may never — if he must — be able to sustain. Looking over at a sleeping Sarah he wonders "how I’ll manage without her, absent her ability to see what’s there instead of what I prefer to see. I’ll have to make sense of things for myself. She’ll wake up soon and then be gone, so for a while I’ll watch her breathe and dream. So lovely."

You can almost hear him sigh. Like it was said the prisoners, who had crossed the Bridge of Sighs, would do at their final window view of beautiful Venice before being taken down to their cells.

Article Author: Gordon Hauptfleisch

Gordon Hauptfleisch is a Blogcritics Books Editor, freelance writer, and book reviewer for San Diego Union Tribune Books (R.I.P.). For many years he worked in and managed bookstores and record stores, and most recently was purchasing manager for San Diego Technical Books. …

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