The One-Way Bridge
A Novel
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
"Cathie Pelletier is one of my favorite novelists, and she's at the top of her game with The One-Way Bridge."—Wally Lamb, author of She's Come Undone
In her highly anticipated new novel, acclaimed literary master Cathie Pelletier returns to Mattagash, Maine, the beloved New England town where it all started.
Welcome to Mattagash, the last town in the middle of the northern Maine wilderness. The road dead-ends here, but Mattagash's citizens are fiercely proud.
Yet this simple town connected by a single one-way bridge is anything but tranquil. While neighbors bicker publicly over trivialities such as offensive mailbox designs and gossip about suspicious newcomers, they privately struggle to navigate deeper issues—scandals, loss, failed ambitions, the scars of war...and a mysterious dead body in the woods.
With her trademark wit and keen eye for detail, Pelletier has assembled an unforgettable cast of endearing and eccentric characters, from scheming mailmen and peeping toms to lovesick waitresses and loggers whose underhandedness belies their ingenuity. The citizens of Mattagash will make you laugh and cheer for them as they stumble into one another's lives and strive to define themselves in a changing world that threatens to leave them behind.
The One-Way Bridge is an extraordinary portrait of family, loneliness, and community—and the kinds of compromises we all make in the name of love.
Praise for The One-Way Bridge:
"The One-Way Bridge is the novel Cathie Pelletier fans have long awaited. Her Mattagash, Maine, is one of the most fully realized fictional locales I've ever visited, it's geography as vivid and precise as any actual place, its citizens as real and compelling as our own friends and neighbors."—Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls
"In her new book, Cathie Pelletier's brilliantly drawn, true-to-life characters break your heart and make you laugh at the same time, a rare talent indeed."—Fannie Flagg, author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her 10th novel (after Running the Bulls), Pelletier spends a week in tiny Mattagash, Maine, examining the public lives and private despairs of its residents. Mailman Orville Craft knows everyone in town but none better than "cantankerous" Harry Plunkett. It's Harry's tacky mailbox that gets under Orville's skin, so much so that he considers retirement. Orville's trouble getting a good balance of life and work has strained his marriage. Harry battles the harrowing memories he's carried since Vietnam. Edna, Harry's adrift niece, longs for a more artistic life, and is considering leaving her husband. And Billy Thunder is back in town, a small-time drug dealer, handyman, and heir to a century-old curse. Only occasionally precious, Pelletier expertly jumps about her large cast, showing their external peculiarities and revealing their inner lives piece by piece until their actions shift from strange to unavoidable. Written in vignettes and character sketches, the story really only comes together at the end, but Pelletier's fans and readers fond of quirky smalltown tales will enjoy the ride.