The Broken Bridge (1990)

Not as good as the His Dark Materials series but not bad. I really like His Dark Materials so thought that I would give some of his other books a chance.

An early young adult novel by Philip Pullman, it is similar in character to his The White Mercedes. Although no where nearly as good as that one, it is still worth reading.

The novel is about a sixteen year old girl Ginny who grows up with a single father father in a coastal village in Wales. Her mother, she is told, is a Haitian artist. Over the course of the novel she learns that a number of her most deeply held truths are anything but. A half brother she never knew about moves in with her and she eventually uncovers more and more about her past and the past of her father.

Throughout the "broken bridge" functions as both a central piece of the story (a literal broken bridge that was damaged in an accident around when she was born) and also a metaphor for her various relationships all in various states of repair.

The book does not have one central revelation or plot twist that puts everything in perspective, instead it is an unfolding of Ginny's awareness of herself and the friends and relatives that surround her. ( )

A story of Ginny, a girl out of place in her small village. When events from the past come crashing into the present she discovers secrets about herself and her father.
As always an enjoyable, well writen book by a great author ( )

"Coming-of-age", "teenage-angst", "identity-crisis" -- yes, these are all appropriate labels to pin on this novel but they only convey part of what Pullman is about. This is also about a sense of place: the northern coast of Cardigan Bay, somewhere around Harlech perhaps, with its mix of Welsh speakers and incomers set in a picturesque but haunting landscape. This too is about what it is to be an artist, with your peculiar personal viewpoint to express, somehow, in an unspoken language that not everyone may understand.

Pullman's narrative skill is evident throughout, drawing this reader onwards, and there is much vivid characterisation. For fans of His Dark Materials and the Sally Lockhart series there is even a little bit of the supernatural suggested, curious perhaps for an avowed atheist writer but convincingly worked in. ( )

How a teenage girl handles the discovery that her father has another child. ( )