The Other Side of the Bridge

May 28, 2018
Wright (The Orphan Keeper) explores how far obsession can take someone in his fourth novel, which too neatly ties together two story lines, each focusing on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Katie Connelly, a San Francisco State University research assistant, is tasked with preparing a primer on the bridge for the state’s school system. in Looking through her deceased father’s desk, she comes upon a journal written by one of the bridge’s construction engineers in the 1930s. (Her father, coincidentally, was an ironworker who helped maintain the bridge.) Her fascination with the journal supersedes her assignment as she seeks to find out more about one of the original bridge workers and his heirs. Dave Riley, a stressed-out East Coast marketing executive, is torn between his high-pressure job and his responsibilities as husband to the love of his life and father of three. Then family tragedy strikes and he’s left with only one thing: his dream of riding across the Golden Gate Bridge—which his grandfather worked on—on a motorcycle on July 4th. That the protagonists will cross paths is inevitable, and though the plot is contrived to serve a “happily ever after” narrative, there is an affirming underlying message that the goodness in people can help others overcome hardship, making this a satisfying novel that will appeal to a wide audience.

February 15, 2018
Wright (The Orphan Keeper, 2016) follows the seemingly separate lives of two grieving strangers. In San Francisco, Katie Connelly has finished her degree but continues to work as a research assistant as she struggles with the loss of her father, an ironworker who helped construct the Golden Gate Bridge. While working on a history of the bridge, she discovers a diary written by one of the original builders and becomes obsessed with returning it to the author's family. On the other side of the country, New York marketing executive Dave Riley, reeling from an unimaginable tragedy, embarks on a cross-country trip to fulfill a dream of riding a motorcycle across the Golden Gate Bridge on the Fourth of July. Dave's journey and Katie's search appear to be leading the two strangers to the bridge and each other. But Wright has more in store than a meet-cute or a conventional romance, and sure enough, his characters' stories intersect in ways that are surprising and ultimately satisfying.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)