Bøker av Jessie Thorpe

"Following author Jessie Thorpe's acclaimed debut novel 'Bolton Roper, ' her new title, 'Mr. Bridges, ' is deftly set in the 1980s and once again showcases her natural flair as a novelist for both originality and the kind of narrative drive storytelling style that is replete with the types of details and descriptions that provide a feeling of authenticity, believability, and reader engagement that raise a novel to the level of fine literature ... 'Mr. Bridges' is unreservedly recommended.">Jack Bridges is the popular principal at Great Forest elementary school in suburban Washington, D.C. His easy manner and likeability contribute to his success and job satisfaction. Each day, he attends to his work and returns home to his wife Greta and their three young sons, Chris, Bud, and Sam. Nina Talbott is a housewife living near the school. She is raising two daughters, Polly and Elaine, while her husband Tom travels frequently for his job. Eventually, and inevitably, Jack and Nina connect and consummate a passionate affair, thereby setting into motion a relationship full of private excitement and hope for future happiness. Jack also experiences a personal epiphany when he returns to the small Michigan lakeside town where he spent an idyllic youth. But a personal tragedy forces him to make a fateful and likely irrevocable life choice. Set in the 1980s, Jessie Thorpe's enthralling second novel contains the signature intelligence and piercing insights into the human condition she displayed in Bolton Roper, her highly praised debut work. She infuses Mr. Bridges with irresistible details and lush descriptions, proving again why she has rapidly established herself as one of literary fiction's premier writers.

We first meet Brooke Roper, a beautiful American woman, as she gazes from her apartment balcony at the Italian sky above and the bustling street of Milan below. But her calmness disguises her severe inner turmoil. Brooke feels a growing panic about her station in life and her marriage to Bolton ("Tony") Roper, ostensibly an American businessman who is actually an undercover CIA operative. It is the summer of 1988, and the Cold War is winding down. But Milan remains a hotbed of Soviet agents, and Tony seems deeply involved in an increasingly dangerous situation. The plot unfolds via Brooke''s recollections of that incident, of her interactions with her two visiting sisters-the oblivious Christina, with whom she shares several adventures in the villages and towns along the Amalfi Coast, in Naples, and in Pompeii; and the imperious Fleur, who startles Brooke into revealing the deepest secret of her marriage-and of her fierce, almost obsessive devotion to her husband, which leads her to the two most fateful and drastic decisions of her life. Bolton Roper is an intensely romantic, deeply haunting journey, both physical and emotional, amid the unique people and lush locations of Italy, within the banal suburbs of Washington, D.C., and at the family home amid the bucolic landscape of a small Michigan town. Always vividly and arrestingly recounted, Brooke''s reverie is the unforgettable story of the wife of a spy.