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Story366 calls BRIDGE a 'fantastic book'

In a new Story366 review of Bridge by Robert Thomas, reviewer Michael Czyzniejewski offers a brief synopsis of the book and its protagonist Alice, who works in a San Francisco law firm and is attracted to her co-worker, David. While Czyzniejewski says that he doesn’t usually describe whole collections in his story reviews, he does so here because he’s conflicted about the format of the work. Is it a collection of short stories? Is it a novel?

"Bridge is a book unlike most I’ve read, as it’s not really a short story collection as it is a novel in short poetic proses pieces. . . . And while I’m spending a lot of words trying to figure out what to call this, I should also note that Bridge is a really fantastic book, one that I wish I could just read all the way to the end now."

According to Czyzniejewski, Alice is “one of the more well drawn out humans” he’s read all year. He describes how Thomas slowly builds and adds to his main character with every story, presenting new facts and details about her in each narrative.

"Robert Thomas won the 2015 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction for Bridge, which I buy, as this book is without a doubt worthy of such awards. In this collection, or whatever you call it, Thomas explores a human who has put herself in a disastrous situation, one that is awful, but perhaps better than her other options, which seem to be nothing. Alice is so well drawn, it gets more and more painful to work through Thomas's book, as her sadness, her quest for happiness, make the hopelessness of plight more apparent with each detail. It’s who she is. For example, in [one] story, young Alice nearly kills herself by grabbing a loose electrical wire, her sister watching; Alice not only needing something dramatic, to feel an extreme, but she requires an audience. This is just one detail that’s peppered throughout Bridge, a book that truly is as great as the sum of its parts."

Click here to read the full review.

Bridge is available now at the BOA Bookstore.

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