Back to the books

After a dangerous foray into reality television, where evil producers blinded me with stripper bling and left me questioning the very soul of America, I've wandered feebly back to the library. Save me!! Last week, I got Richard Russo's new book, "The Bridge of Sighs."

Speaking of sad-sack reality, Russo is the guy. He writes about these small towns where people are stuck, living big in their heads, maybe dreaming of Venice or playing the lotto, or maybe picking on the black kid when he sits too close to Ms. White at the Saturday matinee. Some hope things will magically get better. They have to, right? Some believe they will not. Nobody much thinks it's up to them either way.

Random passage: "On those rare occasions, when (my mother) took my father to task, he always hung his head woefully and claimed she hadn't understood what he meant. 'All I'm saying is, what if this was Russia? Over there you got no chance. You just gotta take what they give you.' To which my mother would roll her eyes. 'How much do you really know about Russia, Lou? Did you go to Russia once and not tell me?' Which would make him even more sheepsih. 'It's what they say,' he'd reply lamely, which would elicit, predictably, my mother's trump observation, that she couldn't care less what 'they' said. It was what *he* said that was giving her a headache."