The Bridge

Summary

The stunning new short novel from the award-winning and bestselling author of Brooklyn and Long Island.

Miquel and his father are living an uneasy life together in his mother's family house in the Pyrenees. Miquel’s mother left the year before, in a rage, and died alone in a snowstorm. Miquel’s brother has too abandoned what’s left of the family.

But the construction of a new bridge will soon end the valley's remoteness. No longer will these Pyrenees villages be so isolated; no longer will small time smugglers cart their contraband over the rope bridge on donkeys.

Where Miquel's father imagines opportunity, Miquel foresees disaster and an exposure to the outside world for which his father is desperately unprepared.

A gorgeous and gutting short novel about grief and desire, The Bridge is a masterpiece. With meticulous precision and an unerring eye, Toibin captures lives caught between the past and the present, and the devastating journey of a young man seeking connection, haunted by loss.