Reading Order
Bridge of Sighs Reading Order
Bridge of Sighs (2007) by Richard Russo is his most meditative novel — the story of Lou Lynch (called Lucy by everyone), a man in his 60s who has never left Thomaston, New York, the upstate New York town where he was born, and who is preparing to take his first trip to Venice with his wife Sarah. The novel moves back and forth between Lou's life in Thomaston across sixty years and the story of Bobby Marconi, Lou's childhood best friend who left Thomaston and became a painter in Venice — a narrative that is told partly through Lou's memoir-in-progress about their shared boyhood and partly through Bobby's own sections. Bridge of Sighs is Russo's most explicitly philosophical novel — it is about memory, loyalty, home, and what it means to stay in the place you came from rather than leaving for somewhere better. Lou Lynch is one of Russo's most unusual characters: a genuinely happy man, a man who stayed and doesn't regret it, a man whose contentment is not naiveté but a genuine achievement in a world that values mobility and escape. The novel asks whether Lou's life — the life he chose — is a kind of wisdom or a kind of failure, and it answers honestly in both directions.
Where to start
Bridge of Sighs — any Knopf or Vintage paperback. Best read after Empire Falls and Nobody's Fool, which establish Russo's upstate New York world and his range; Bridge of Sighs is more meditative and less immediately comic than those novels.
Complete Bridge of Sighs Book List
- 1Buy
Bridge of Sighs
Richard Russo·2007·The novel — Lou Lynch's sixty years in Thomaston, New York; Bobby Marconi's escape to Venice; Sarah's role between them; Russo's most meditative and philosophically ambitious novel, about memory, loyalty, and the choice to stay. - 2Buy
Empire Falls
Richard Russo·2001·The Pulitzer Prize-winning companion — Miles Roby in Empire Falls, Maine; the fullest comic-tragic treatment of the dying mill town that Bridge of Sighs treats in the meditative mode. - 3Buy
Nobody's Fool
Richard Russo·1993·The comic companion — Sully Sullivan in North Bath; knowing Russo's comic range makes the meditative Bridge of Sighs more resonant as a departure from and complement to his usual mode. - 4Buy
The Risk Pool
Richard Russo·1988·Russo's autobiographical companion — the earlier, more intimate version of the upstate New York world; Ned Hall's Mohawk is the autobiographical precursor to Lou Lynch's Thomaston. - 5Buy
Straight Man
Richard Russo·1997·Russo's most comic novel — the companion for understanding his full range before approaching the more serious Bridge of Sighs. - 6Buy
Gilead
Marilynne Robinson·2004·Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel — John Ames's letter to his young son; the most important literary companion to Bridge of Sighs; both novels are about men of deep moral seriousness writing their lives' retrospectives, both concerned with what staying in a small American place means. - 7Buy
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro·1989·Ishiguro's Booker Prize-winning novel — Stevens's retrospective account of his career as a butler; the companion in literary fiction about a man reviewing his life and its choices; both novels are built around the question of whether the life one lived was the right one. - 8Buy
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan·2010·Egan's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel — multiple characters across time, the music industry, memory and time; the companion in contemporary literary fiction that uses narrative structure to explore what time does to people and to their relationships.
Bridge of Sighs — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Bridge of Sighs about?
Bridge of Sighs follows Lou Lynch — called Lucy by everyone since childhood — across his sixty years in Thomaston, New York, a small upstate New York town. Lou and his wife Sarah are preparing for their first trip to Venice, where Lou's childhood best friend Bobby Marconi now lives as a painter. The novel moves back and forth between Lou's present and his memoir about his boyhood in Thomaston — the friendship with Bobby, the complicated relationship with Sarah (who was Bobby's girlfriend before she was Lou's), and the specific social world of 1950s Thomaston. Bobby's own sections are told from Venice, where he has been for decades, and the novel explores the gap between the two choices: Lou who stayed and Bobby who left.
What kind of person is Lou Lynch?
Lou Lynch is unusual in Russo's fiction — and in American fiction more broadly — because he is genuinely happy. He stayed in Thomaston, took over his father's small store, married Sarah, lived the modest, local life, and doesn't regret it. The novel is careful to show that Lou's contentment is not naiveté or lack of imagination — he is aware of what he chose and what he gave up — but a genuine achievement, a man who found what he wanted in the particular, local, specific life he lived. American fiction tends to value mobility and escape and the choice to leave; Bridge of Sighs is one of the few serious American novels that argues that staying is also a choice that can be made well, and that Lou has made it well.
Who is Bobby Marconi and what does he represent?
Bobby Marconi is Lou's childhood best friend, a talented, restless young man who grew up in a difficult household (his father was violent, his family poor) and who left Thomaston as soon as he could, eventually becoming a painter in Venice. Bobby represents the American narrative of escape and self-invention — the person who leaves the constricting small town and finds something larger. The novel does not romanticize Bobby's choice: he has been in Venice for decades, has cut himself off from his past, and the price of his escape has been the people he left behind, including Sarah, who chose Lou over Bobby and who has never been completely sure she made the right choice.
How does Bridge of Sighs differ from Russo's other novels?
Bridge of Sighs is more meditative, more melancholy, and more philosophical than Empire Falls or Nobody's Fool — it is concerned with memory, loyalty, and the retrospective assessment of a life rather than with the comic present tense of his other major novels. It is also his most structurally complex — the alternation between Lou's present and his memoir, and between Lou's sections and Bobby's, requires more patience from the reader than the driving comic narrative of Nobody's Fool. For readers who love Russo's comedy, Bridge of Sighs can feel slower; for readers who want to see him at his most ambitious and most serious, it is his most sustained achievement after Empire Falls.
What should I read after Bridge of Sighs?
After Bridge of Sighs, Empire Falls (2001) and Nobody's Fool (1993) are the essential companions in Russo's fiction. For literary fiction about men reviewing their lives in similar retrospective mode, Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day are the most important companions. For American fiction about the choice to stay versus the choice to leave, Wendell Berry's fiction and Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety are important counterparts.
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