The Bridge - by Doug Marlette (Paperback)

About the Book

Pick Cantrell is a successful newspaper cartoonist whose career has hit the skids. Fired from his job in New York, he returns to Eno, North Carolina, where he confronts the ghosts of his past. What follows is an extraordinary story within a story, as Pick uncovers startling truths about himself and his family.

Book Synopsis

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 truths about himself and about the role his grandmother played in the tragic General Textile Strike Of 1934

A novel about family, love, and forgiveness, The Bridge explores how much we ever really know about others, and most important, about ourselves.

From the Back Cover

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 truths about himself and about the role his grandmother played in the tragic General Textile Strike Of 1934

A novel about family, love, and forgiveness, The Bridge explores how much we ever really know about others, and most important, about ourselves.

Review Quotes

"[The Bridge]...contains just the right mix of humor and dignity. Recommended." - Library Journal

"Marlette's prose has a straightforward immediacy." - New York Times Book Review

The Bridge [is]...exuberant, proud, myth-challenging. A hugely ambitious novel. - Washington Post Book World

"An exceptional first novel from a multi-talented author: gripping, exciting, moving, challenging, illuminating." - --Jay Hollenberger, Crossroads Market Bookstore, Houston, TX

"Marlette's fiction is as searing and brilliant as his visual art. The Bridge is an exceptional, eloquent book." - St. Petersburg Times

"The fiction debut of a gifted and perceptive artist....Engaging." - Publishers Weekly

"Impressive...Engaging...[Marlette] is a talented novelist." - Raleigh News & Observer

"The Bridge [is] a well-written, engrossing tale....An impressive debut and powerful read." - Charlotte Observer