Richard Russo, _Bridge of Sighs_

 THIS IS THE fourth Russo novel I have read. All but one (Straight Man) were set in an upstate New York down in a gradual downward spiral, and four centered on a flawed but well-meaning man trying to pull together something redemptive from an accumulation of questionable decisions and missed opportunities. On that level, they all might be the same novel--but you can level the same charge at Jane Austen (young woman has to distinguish, without a lot of help from friends or family, Mr. Seems-Right-at-First from Mr. Truly-Right), which goes to show that a novelist can keep writing what is in the abstract the very same novel, yet continue to come up books worth reading.

In brief, Bridge of Sighs is characteristically Russo-esque in setting, character, and story, and be it because of or despite that, I liked it a lot.

Lou C. Lynch, known to most of the town of Thomaston as Lucy, narrates most of the novel, giving us a lot of background about his family, the town, his marriage to his high school girlfriend, Sarah, and his childhood friendship with Bobby Marconi, who has gone on to become Robert Noonan, an internationally recognized painter who now lives in Venice. Lucy is writing his memoirs at the same time that he and Sarah are planning a retirement trip to Italy, which is to include a stop in Venice to renew acquaintance with Bobby/Robert.

Russo steps out of Lucy's narration occasionally, though, with chapters from the points of view of Robert and Sarah, from which we gather that the two-couple high school friendship that defined their senior year--Lucy and Sarah, Bobby and prettiest girl in town Bev--trembled with the tension of a mutual attraction between Sarah and Bobby.

All the plans for visiting Venice, accordingly, are charged with the emotions of roads not taken, and we get a kind of retrospective reconstruction of a Jane Austen novel, with Sarah as the young woman who must distinguish, without much help from friends or family, Mr. Seems-Right from Mr. Truly-Right. We know from early on whom she chose--what unfolds for us is the question of whether she chose well. 

This is a generous novel, so there is a lot more alongside this central story: attention to how racial difference mattered in Thomaston, to families functional and dys-, to what the 1960s felt like if you were a teenager. One of my favorite chapters, even though its role in the plot was slight, was an analysis of what junior high dances of the era felt like. 

Russo is no minimalist, and a lot of readers may feel we could have used a bit less of this or a little less of that. But if you can appreciate some old-fashioned Victorian amplitude in contemporary fiction, Russo is your man.