The Broken Bridge

Ginny Howard's mother was from Haiti, and it's from her that Ginny apparently inherits her artistic talents. She now lives with her widowed father in a Welsh village near the sea, and for a fifteen-year-old of mixed descent that isn't easy. Come the summer holidays and some of the mysteries concerning her mother and family start to emerge, upsetting the sensitive but determined teenager at that crucial period when she is making the transition from childhood to adulthood.

"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, south of Harlech, with its show more uneasy 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.

As Pullman himself writes, "In this book I was really writing about my own teenage years in that part of the world, and my discovery of the visual arts, and my love of that landscape." His narrative skill is evident throughout, drawing the 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 fairly convincingly worked in. In this tortured and claustrophobic novel teenage feelings of alienation and isolation are captured well; true to life, not every matter is resolved but there is certainly a glimmer of hope beckoning at the end of the tunnel.

http://wp.me/s2oNj1-bridge show less

first line: "One day in the school playground they'd said, Eeny, meeny, miney, Mo', Catch a nigger by his toe, and they'd all looked at Ginny and laughed."

If I had to label it, I'd call The Broken Bridge a coming-of-age novel. The protagonist, Ginny, is a biracial girl living in England with her white father. Pullman deftly and unflinchingly handles weighty themes -- race, abuse, abandonment -- and the fact that there's always more innocence to be lost. Still, the dark aspects of the story are balanced by love and strength and simple joys.

This man really has a knack for writing dynamic female characters, it's quite impressive. This book could almost be in the Sally Lockheart Trilogy (The Ruby in the Smoke). It's basically a Victorian thriller for a younger audience, set in Wales. Interesting. Pullman makes it work though. It's just dark and mysterious and slightly insane enough to be intriguing, but it's not overwhelming.

Narrated by Miriam Margolyes. It’s just been Ginny and her Dad as long as she can remember since her mother died shortly after Ginny’s birth. But now at age 16, Ginny begins to question who she is and what is her background, especially as a biracial child growing up in a white community. The secrets about her family history begin to unravel when Dad reveals he has a 16-year-old son. Margoyle's narration is quite expressive especially during scenes of strong emotion and even during quietly thoughtful moments.

Sixteen-year-old Ginny has been raised by her father, following her mother's death. She is the only mixed-race teen in a small Welsh village (her mother was Haitian), and she herself has inherited her mother's artistic talent. Despite that, she has friends and a good life. Then she learns that her father had been married before, and has a son, who will now come to live with them, his mother having died.

Though they have the losses of their mothers in common, Ginny and her half-brother, Robert, take an instant dislike to one another. And Ginny, in trying to find out why her father had never told her about her brother before, discovers even more secrets.

Pullman is, as usual, excellent in his description of the adolescent female, and the show more relationships among the characters are quite realistic. Definitely recommended. show less

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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. show less