After 11 or 12 years of waiting, you’d think that the author will write the next big thing. Unfortunately he wrote the next big disappointment and I fell from this Bridge of Clay into a sea of disappointment! At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge—for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle.

Henry Dunbar – the third Dunbar boy, who spends his days working and his evenings either drunkenly stealing mailboxes or living on a visual diet of films from the 1980s.

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Years after the death of their mother, the fourth son in an Australian family of five boys reconnects with his estranged father. In March 2016, Zusak talked about his unfinished novel Bridge of Clay. He stated that the book was 90% finished but that, "... I'm a completely different person than the person who wrote The Book Thief. And this is also the scary thing—I'm a different person to the one who started Bridge of Clay eight, nine years ago ... I've got to get it done this year, or else I'll probably finally have to set it aside." [8] I like when Authors move along their past works and try to bring something new. I think Zusak both did and didn’t do that and let me explain. He wrote a totally different story that is unrelated to his previously successful books and that’s the good thing. The bad thing is that he was trying so hard to make it sound poetical and whimsical but it ended up being over the top! Bridge of Clay is a tender book, set in a world that is anything but. Its enormous ambitions are sustained by heartfelt beliefs, not least in the power of love. This vast novel is a feast of language and irony. Its narrative structure makes demands on the reader but it constantly works through tangled lives to achieve moments of sublime clarity and insight. It is such a compassionate book that it is hard not to fall a bit in love with it yourself. Bridge of Clay shares with Zusak's The Book Thief an underlying sense of the possibility of joy and human dignity even in dehumanising situations. It is driven by no agenda other than a desire to celebrate the ups and downs of flawed mortals. The makes it a breath of fresh air.' Sydney Morning Herald Prescription: I can’t seem to recommend this for anyone in the time being. If you want a better story about 5 brothers which is more relatable and has great writing then I recommend Watching Glass Shatter by James Cudney!

and so when i die and they open me up, and they see this story engraved on my heart, they will know how a boy named clay changed me, too. These read like the stanzas to poems I wrote in college whilst stoned. Sure, in the moment, THC coursing through my veins, they were undeniably brilliant and moving and powerful. But in the harsh light of morning, they were embarrassing beyond belief. She turned the knob to a shadowed dimness and sat on the stool at the piano. Slowly, her hands drifted, and genly, she pressed the high-pitched notes. She hit them soft but true and right, where she'd used the paint left over. all of these things happen to a boy name clay - this is his story. and although this book is told by his brother, it is still a story about ‘the fourth dunbar brother. and how everything happened to him. and because of that, we were all of us changed through him.’

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Na forma, Zusak tem uma escrita peculiar e muito sua, que nem sempre agrada a todos! No conteúdo, as histórias que nos conta, extravasam sentimento, e, essas sim, tocam-nos a quase... quase... todos 😍 For fans of Markus Zusak’s remarkable The Book Thief, it has been a long wait for his newest novel, Bridge of Clay. In fact, Bridge of Clay represents an idea that has been 20 years in the making. That Zusak has spent so long working on the novel is a testament to his determination, as well as his faith that Bridge of Clay is a story worth telling. I love Zusak’s writing for its succinct distillation of the human experience and have been waiting for this release with patient anticipation. While I didn’t know what to expect – particularly as a follow-up to the unexpected global success of The Book Thief– I was prepared to assume that Zusak’s narrative skill would turn any plot into a revelation. I certainly wasn’t disappointed. Although Bridge of Clay has flaws – an inevitability with a work that has taken so long to come to fruition – they feel incidental to a work that is so replete with vulnerability. It is easily one of the most humanistic novels that I’ve read this year – a raw account of the trauma that can accompany both loss and reconciliation.

It also touches on horse racing, and having an interest in the Sydney racing scene it was a bit of a trip down memory lane for me. I did laugh at the racehorse called Engadine (yes Markus and I share the same hometown, though I don't personally know him!) Bridge of Clay is a 2018 novel by Australian author Markus Zusak. It revolves around five brothers coming to terms with the disappearance of their father. [1] The Wall Street Journal reviewer Meghan Cox Gurdon captured its essence, saying “In words that seem to ache with emotion, or perhaps, more aptly, with the suppression of it, Mr. Zusak moves us in and out of time.”En esta novela conocemos la historia de 'Clay Dunbar', el silencioso, el chico con demasiado corazón. Uno de cinco hermanos inadaptados, el corredor incansable, imparable, una inmovible fuerza de la naturaleza. Entrenando fuera de cualquier sentido, sin descanso, desconociendo, y de alguna manera consciente, de un fatídico día por llegar. El día de ajustar cuentas. Both parents were readers, for their mother it was The Iliad and the Odyssey, for their father it was the Quarryman. The books are mentioned often and have great significance in the parents’ lives and that of the Dunbar boys. They were also great storytellers passing down to the boys not only their love of books but the stories of their own lives. It is Clay, the quiet one, who will build a bridge; for his family, for his past, for his sins. He builds a bridge to transcend humanness. To survive. This is a story about family and the narratives that underlie them. The idea of personal history forms such a central part of the plot and the novel’s structure. The chronology of Bridge of Clay drifts around, from the story of Penelope – the Dunbar’s mother – to the history of Michael – their father – to Matthew’s present-day writing of the narrative, to the eleven years earlier that Clay left school to help ‘the Murderer’ build his bridge. It is an expansive story and, admittedly, the elliptical nature of the various revelations and histories can be a little tough to follow in places. However, this is something that Zusak pursued consciously: “You have to do a bit more work but I think the rewards are greater, too” ( Entertainment Weekly). For me, the payoff is most definitely worth the patience required as the various narrative threads come together.

So there’s not much more I can say. There isn't a regular plot with things happening and people dying. i'm REALLY big on books with themes of family and while that was the MAIN topic of the book, i couldn't even connect with the boys (i'll admit some parts were funny but they were too few and far between) bc THE WRITING WAS ALL OVER THE PLACE I have a customer that comes into work every Thursday. His name is Doug and we bonded over Markus Zusak and over the last eight months we've become really great friends. I lent him copy of this book to read and he left little notes throughout it and it's a copy I will treasure forever. And soon we're going to go and meet Markus Zusak at a book event and we're so excited. These books have changed my life and they've also introduced wonderful people to me too.Warm and heartfelt. . . . This is a tale of love, art and redemption; rowdy and joyous, with flashes of wit and insight, and ultimately moving.” Times of London Working with Zusak throughout the creation of BRIDGE OF CLAY was his editor, Erin Clarke, who says, “Markus is one of the kindest and most generous people I know. He’s also meticulous at his craft, which despite the struggles that caused over the past decade, ultimately rewarded not only him but me, as his editor, and I hope and believe, his readers.” Kinson, Sarah (28 March 2008). "Why I write: Markus Zusak | Books | guardian.co.uk". Guardian. London . Retrieved 14 February 2009. This is a story of love, heartbreak, togetherness, family, despair, life, death, forgiveness and reconciliation. A family saga without all the unnecessary words.