The Bridge by Rebecca Rogers Maher
Released: September 16, 2013
Contemporary Novella
Self Published
Reviewed by Mandi
Awhile ago I read Hurricane Lily by Rebecca Maher, and I remember thinking that this author has a really good voice. So when she asked me to review The Bridge, even though the blurb gave me chills, I had to accept. The Bridge is a very powerful novella. It’s profoundly sad, yet hopeful and romantic. I wasn’t even sure if someone could write a believable story about two people ready to end their lives and over the period of 24 hours turn it into a love story. But Rebecca Rogers Maher does it.
Henry has been battling severe depression most of his life. Coming from a wealthy family, he has all the medication and therapists one could hope for at his disposal, but the darkness is too much. After botching slitting his wrists, this time he doesn’t want to fail. So he heads to the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of the night. As he sits there about to jump, he sees a woman sitting a ways down.
Christa has already lost one breast to cancer and now it has come back in her other breast. Her husband left her during her first round, and now she has no health insurance nor the will to actually fight the cancer a second time. They end up scooting close to each other, curiosity making it’s way in, needing to know why the other is jumping. While they both truly want to jump, they don’t want the other to jump. So they come to this:
“What if you just…wait?” he says. “I mean we.” “What if we wait, say, twenty-four hours. And then you can ask yourself again if you still want to do it.”
"I lean forward. “I’ll still want to do it.”
But Christa ends up agreeing and down they go. At this point it is very early morning and they each make up a list of places in New York city they want to take the other. Throughout this day they discuss their lives. Their illnesses. They witness actions of people around them that affect them. They cry. They laugh. They talk about their past and what has brought them to this point. Christa is extremely blunt with Henry and his depression. And he in turn makes her confront her fears.
Once you’ve reached a certain tipping point of knowledge about how cruel the world can be, you can’t turn time backwards and un-know it. The truth becomes part of you. It changes you. It leaves scars both actual and hidden.
Meanwhile, the world keeps spinning. The people around you go on acting like everything is normal when you know it isn’t. You know that lightning strikes and it doesn’t care who it chooses. You can’t avoid it be being good, or being careful. It strikes and if you’re the one in the way, it’s you. It can happen at any time, and not only are you supposed to just sit there and take it, you’re supposed to go on acting like the world is somehow okay still. And it isn’t. It never will be for you, again.
But there is hope in this book. Somehow in less than 100 pages and over just a 24 hour period, this author writes a book of hope and romance. She makes their journey such a believable one. Do I wish we got another day with them? Hell yes. But what we get – It’s intense and dark and powerful. Well done.
Rating: B+
Wow. This book sounds like an emotional freight train. I’ll give it a try.
This book battered my heart yet also gave me an incredible feeling of hope. I Ioved it. Maher has a very powerful voice.
*Goes to buy*
Sounds heavy but certainly good!