The Bridge

by Doug Marlette

Book Overview

From Pulitzer Prize winner Doug Marlette comes the captivating story of Pick Cantrell, a successful newspaper cartoonist whose career has hit the skids. In the grip of a midlife meltdown, Pick returns with his wife and son to a small North Carolina town, where he confronts the ghosts of his past in the form of the family matriarch and his boyhood nemesis, Mama Lucy. What follows is an extraordinary story within a story, as Pick uncovers startling...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060505214
• ISBN13: 9780060505219
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

A book I couldn't wait to finish, but didn't want to end.

I have not enjoyed a book so much in a very long time. I heard Doug Marlette being interviewed on PBS and immediately knew I had to read this book. I laughed, I cried, and I couldn't put it down. I'm now to recommend it to my book group. Can't wait till his next effort. Thanks, Doug Marlette for a wonderful read.

Wonderful writing

This is a first book and it is phenomenal. Reminded me of the power of the writing of John Irving.....I haven't cried while reading a book since his "Cider House Rules". It's powerful writing that can make you do that. Marlette's characters are all unique and strong and realistic and the stories of everyone are all woven together wonderfully. Plus you learn the history of our country's Southern mills and the union which had to break the terrible working conditions in the 30's. Excellent read....I'm the type that reads so much non-fiction, that it is a rare novel that can hold my interest. This one is unique.

Pat Conroy is Right - You Must Read This Book

For most people, one great talent would be enoughFor Doug Marlette, it's just a starting point.Doug Marlette is a Pulitzer-Prize winning editorial cartoonist. And he may be even better known as the author of Kudzu, the comic strip that appears daily in dozens of newspapers.But if his first novel, The Bridge, is any indication, Marlette's greatest talent may be as a novelist.This is a book you can't put down, a book that leaves you torn between savoring every page and hurrying through to get to the outcome.The Bridge is a semi-autobigraphical tale that features a gripping story of conflict and violence in North Carolina's not-too-distant textile past. But just as importantly, it is a story of self-discovery and reconciliation. It is a story about people for whom you come to care deeply.I wept for the last 50 pages.Some books are great reads. A few books are not only great reads but they also make you think about how you live your life. The Bridge is such a book.The novelist Pat Conroy says on the jacket cover that The Bridge is the best first novel to come out of North Carolina since Look Homeward Angel.Pat Controy was right.

Voices of Truth

One of the main things I look for in a novel is the "voice" that propels and pervades the storytelling. Marlette's The Bridge matches character and voice perfectly. Main character and narrator Pick Cantrell looks at the world through the eye of a cartoonist, but this rich novel is far from being a cartoon. In the contemporary settings, Pick "picks" his images of the people around him. We see them focused through his "lens." Through this narrative device, we become involved with well-developed characters who happen to have a cartoonist's microscope run over their quirks, making them all the more fascinating. This extra-dimension to the writing is true to Pick's own character voice and a tribute to Marlette's skill as a creative artist. Not only is the whole scope of the story adroitly presented, but his sentences are just loaded with little "cartoonist concepts" that make me laugh out loud. Pick's reference to his family reunion as a "coagulation" is a brilliant image of bloodlines clotting around the picnic table. Everyone who has ever been to a family reunion knows exactly what he means.But, this novel is not simply Pick Cantrell's story and voice. There lies within it a greater gift of truth: giving "voice" to the "voiceless." The mill workers of this country whose struggle was all but lost to history's emphasis on the New Deal and the rise of fascist Germany also have a story to tell. That voice is embodied in Mama Lucy, and Marlette has created a bridge back to a forgotten past that touches us all. It is The Bridge which I hope many, many readers will cross.

The bridge home...

It doesn't always take a terrorist attack to change a life. Mine was changed before our national tragedy in a way I never expected by a book called "The Bridge." I don't know how or when it happened, but somewhere in Doug Marlette's valentine to family and the South, I was changed. Somehow his childhood was my childhood and his family became mine and the emotions and feelings and sensations of life and love and transitions became too much. I put down the book and began rebuilding the broken bridge with my own distant, disengaged family. "The Bridge" tells tales of family secrets--hidden in attics and covered with cobwebs. It explores the differences of poor and the privileged, the talented and the not, the North and the South, the seemingly lucky ones who escaped their beginnings and their cousins who did not. It's a study of coming home and of jealousy, prejudice, courage and the trials of humanity. It helped me understand myself and people I've misunderstood for years. The book also tells the true but mostly unreported story of a horrible and hearbreaking textile war in our country and the heroics of the worker struggles Norma Rae would covet. Beyond all that, it's intriguing to read "The Bridge" to watch a talented cartoonist twist his already twisted mind to become a novelist. How does a guy who has drawn wonderful squiggley cartoons and comic strips and exploited the power of the picture and the punchline for his whole life create something that's only words? Well, he paints word pictures, and he does it in a way that is beautiful and moving. "The Bridge" touched those painful parts of my heart and soul that were aching without my knowing. The book made me feel more human. Now, almost over the coma I've been in since September 11, I'm going to read the book again. I'll start right after I phone home.