Reader's guide for "Bridge of Sighs," Oprah's book club pick revealed in August

[ad_1] Oprah Winfrey joins "CBS Mornings" with writer Richard Russo to debate her newest choice, "Bridge of Sighs." Dive into "Bridge of Sighs,"with this reader's information.

Reader's Information Questions 1. Bridge of Sighs alternates two narratives: Lucy's first-person memoir and the story of Robert Noonan. What are some great benefits of this construction? How does it have an effect on the way in which the plot unfolds? Does it affect your impressions of the primary characters?

2. How does Lucy's description of Thomaston create a direct sense of time and place [pp. 10–13]? What particulars did you discover significantly evocative? What does Lucy's tone, in addition to the way in which he presents varied details about Thomaston and its historical past, reveal about his perceptiveness and his intelligence?

3. Lucy says, "I've at all times identified that there is extra occurring inside me than finds its method into the world, however that is in all probability true of everybody. Who does not remorse that he is not extra totally understood?" [p. 14]. To what extent does this sense lie on the coronary heart of his determination to write down his ebook? Does it play a central position in memoir-writing generally? What else does Lucy hope to perform by recalling his previous?

4. The horrific prank the neighborhood boys play on Lucy triggers the primary of many "spells" he may have all through his life [pp. 25–36]. What's the significance of his spells? What do they reveal concerning the emotional attachments, anxieties, and doubts that outline him each as a baby and as an grownup?

5. Lucy makes many references to the pursuit of the American Dream and its implications inside his family and in society generally [pp. 62–66, 93–94, 110–111, for example]. In what methods did American attitudes within the postwar years embody each one of the best components of our nationwide character and its darker undercurrents? What incidents within the novel illuminate the uneasiness and enmity that outcomes from the category, racial, and financial divisions in Thomaston? Do Lucy's beliefs, judgments, and achievements (as a businessman and as a fortunately married husband and father) coloration his reconstruction of those occasions?

6. In contrast to Lucy's story, Noonan's story is advised within the third individual. Is the change of voice a literary machine, a method of including selection to the novel, or does it serve one other goal? In what methods does it assist to convey the fundamental distinction between Lucy and Noonan and the way in which they see themselves and their place on this planet? Evaluate the tone and language Russo makes use of in creating Lucy's voice with the model he makes use of in his portraits of Noonan. What features of Noonan's character and persona come to life in his conversations along with his artwork vendor and his mistress [pp. 41–61]; his reactions to Lucy's missives [pp. 158–162] and to Mr. Berg's class in highschool [pp. 375–380]; and, in the end, his ideas and habits on arriving in New York [pp. 608–618]?

7. Lucy and Bobby [pp. 156–157 and pp. 170–171, respectively] try to elucidate why their lives—and Sarah's—have turned out the way in which they've. Do you agree with Lucy that "to see a life again to entrance, as everybody begins to do in center age, is to strip it of its thriller and wrap it in inevitability, drama's enemy"? To what extent does Bobby share this view? Why does Bobby see himself as being answerable for his life in a method that neither Sarah nor Lucy is? Is that this a results of his background and the circumstances that compelled him to organize himself for a second act?

8. Tessa is the sensible, regular member of the Lynch household. In what methods does her habits mirror her personal selections, wants, and needs, and in what methods are these decided by the point and place through which she lives? What qualities make her stand out, not solely in Lucy's eyes, but additionally inside the neighborhood as a complete?

9. Does Lucy's identification along with his father distort his picture of his mom and his understanding of her strengths and her weaknesses? Past her rapid anger, what drives her to inform Lucy, "I by no means needed you to not love your father. . . . I needed you to like me. . . . Did it ever happen to you, even as soon as throughout all these years, that you just may need taken my facet? That I may need wanted a pal?" [p. 263]? Is that this a legitimate criticism, or is Tessa herself accountable, both inadvertently or deliberately, for the variations between Lucy's relationships with every father or mother?

10. Sarah comes from an unconventional household, particularly within the context of Thomaston. Is her means to take care of the eccentricities of her mother and father and the summer time/winter dwelling preparations they established uncommon? In what methods does she not solely adapt to but additionally profit from the very issues that set her aside? Is her attraction to the Lynches partially a response to her dysfunctional household?

11. Are Mr. Berg's obsessions—with perpetuating his picture as a insurgent, with the "nice" ebook he's writing, and along with his failed marriage—sympathetically drawn? What's the significance of the truth that he's Jewish? What biases, each good and dangerous, do the folks of Thomaston (together with Lucy) have about Jews and what affect does this have on Berg and his fame inside the neighborhood?

12. What position does her mom play in Sarah's sense of self? What are the implications of her views on marriage [pp. 394–395]? Do they affect Sarah's emotions about her personal marriage and that of her in-laws? Why is Sarah drawn again to the house she shared along with her mom when she faces a disaster in her relationship with Lucy [pp. 564–607]? What does she study by revisiting the previous?

13. What traits do Tessa and Sarah share? In what methods do their marriages mirror each other? Do you suppose both—or each—foolishly gave up their very own goals and needs, sacrificing a lifetime of journey and sexual ardour for the love and safety of a "good" man? Behind their obvious contentment, are there indications that they remorse the alternatives they made?

14. The Bridge of Sighs in Venice connects the Doge's Palace to an adjoining jail, and, as Lucy relates, "Crossing this bridge, the convicts—no less than those with out cash or affect—got here to know that every one hope was misplaced" [p. 387]. How does the historic operate of the bridge, in addition to the myths surrounding it, relate to characters' lives? Why has Russo chosen it because the title of the novel?

15. Richard Russo has written about small cities all through his profession. What are some similarities between Bridge of Sighs and former novels like Empire Falls and No person's Idiot? In what methods does Bridge of Sighs improve and increase the portrait of America that's so central to Russo's writing?