Our final #CannonBookClub of 2018 has arrived. Our second Anniversary Read, Between the Bridge and the River, has inspired a wide range of emotions and responses – admittedly most of them negative. Craig Ferguson was after something, and we’ve all had different takes on what he achieved and how he failed.
Ground rules remain the same as they always have. For those of you who might be joining in for #CannonBookClub for the first time (hello new friends!) all are welcome. The topics are numbered and we ask that you refer to them below by that number to help people find the conversation topics they are looking for. If you are responding to someone else’s thoughts, please try to respond directly to them and also tell us about your own ponderings on the book. While we’ve never once had to use it and don’t expect to now, comments that are not germane to our discussion or get out of hand will be removed.
Wrapping up today we will also be talking on our Social Media platforms, and of course in our Facebook group, Cannonball Read Book Chat, so feel free to wander over there throughout the course of today and tomorrow.
On to the topics:
- This is a road trip book – everyone is on the move. Paris, Glasgow, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Delray Beach, Florida, Birmingham, Alabama, and rural Georgia all feature. Why do you think these particular locations are featured? What are they intended to add to the narrative?
- Fraser spends quite a bit of time in what might be Purgatory speaking to Carl Jung and others. How do you feel about the inclusion of these other realities? How did you react to the side stories?
- Why did hating Saul not fall into the natural place of villain?
- Do you think everyone got what they deserved at the end? Or did some get off easy? What do you think will happen with George and Claudette?
- This was originally going to be part of a series. Could you see anywhere else the story could go?
- Do you think Craig Ferguson’s state of mind had anything to do with the disjointed nature of the book?
- The story is written in a rather standard, conversational voice and includes repeated phrases and ideas, as well as a bit of the fantastical. How did Ferguson’s debut authorial voice hit you? Was it what you expected from him as an author?
- If you didn’t finish this book/rage read it and want to tell us all the reasons why because you’re still angry.
- Grab Bag: I have thoughts and feelings I cannot fit into the above topics, meet me in the comment section.
What say you, my dear Cannonballers?
I wish AlabamaPink were still around for many reasons, but I so wish she could join in on this discussion 10 years later and see what she still thought about this book. Mrs. Smith wrote in her review that if she had read this 10 years ago, she’d have felt differently about it then. I wonder what Pink would think now.
So re: #5 – I had NO idea it was going to be a part of a series. I don’t know where else they could go with it. I thought it was pretty wrapped up.
I kept having similar thoughts as I read it – I know so much more now and I’m able to look at a book and see where its failing both in craft but in how it presents the world. 10 years ago I would probably have rated this 3-3.5 and written a kinder review. Now its barely a 2 and I’m warning other readers that it doesn’t have a single woman with agency and we all sigh at the disappointment because we expect better.
re #5 – I was SHOCKED that there was supposed to be more, but also wondering if that was just the sales pitch for a book deal.
#5 I can buy that it was part of the pitch. To me, this read very much like a parable, so I wonder if that wasn’t the idea, that he’d write more shaggy-dog-type parables rather than simply continuing with the same characters.
I’ll tackle #7:
As I noted in my review, in the past I was a voracious reader of certain Scottish writers who were very popular in the 80s and 90s, like Irvine Welsh, Alasdair Gray, and Alan Warner (Morvern Callar). I loved them back then—not so sure I would love their stories as much today. Their writing was very much about capturing language and slang, mood, class, and state of mind in a very male-centred stream of consciousness way.
Between the Bridge and the River reminded me of those authors, primarily due to Ferguson’s use of language and quick, repetitive dialogue. As he and I are about the same age, I feel he might have been writing from their example, and it works… up to a point. He did a decent job of mimicking their style, but doesn’t have nearly the writing chops to pull it off. The plot also felt a bit like Neil Gaiman… a sort of Good Omens, or American Gods pastiche. Did anyone else get that vibe?
OH. Yes, this has a DISTINCTLY Irvine Welsh feel about it (I’m not personally familiar with the other two). The language us – the quick, repetitive dialogue and callbacks are the things that I liked about the book and it makes sense that they would if you look at it in time with those other aspects of popular craft.
MrsSmith I totally got Good Omen vibes from this one too! Unfortunately I didn’t like Good Omens either, although it was a vastly superior novel, but when you are reading the poor man’s version of a book you’d already disliked it is a pretty miserable experience.
9.Grab Bag:
Mostly I’m just still really upset that I didn’t like this! Not the expected outcome. Can we just have a thread where we talk about how awesome his memoir is instead?
I somehow bought this thinking it WAS a memoir, which may have accounted for some of my disappointment in the book.
I love his memoir and am still cautiously optimistic that his next memoir, out next year, Riding the Elephant will be more of that and none of this.
#9 – your mileage may vary, but I really didn’t care for the thinly disguised pop culture elements. Yes, we get it, Starbuck was first mate on the pequod, isn’t coffee shop culture ridiculous? Nicholas Kilmer the movie star made a bad movie with a dumb title; isn’t hollywood crazy? Felt like pulling punches. Criticize explicitly or fictionally, but this fell into the uncanny valley between the two.
I kind of liked those! To me, it was a little bit of a riff on the individuals but I also read it as commentary on the industry and how Meg Ryan/Julia Roberts or Meg Roberts are treated as interchangeable by the system. “We need an American sweetheart, who is the current one?”
And sure Brainism reads like it is making fun of Scientology specifically but it’s not like that was the first religious fad in Hollywood – anyone remember when Madonna practiced Kabbalah?
Fair point! When you put it that way it makes sense as a convention; I’ve never cared for it in any book I’ve read, not just this one, but you eloquently explained the appeal.
#8 I did not finish. Didn’t even come close (about 120 pages) and therefore won’t be counting it towards my year end total although I shamelessly posted a review for the free space on Bingo.
I came into this one with a particularly poisoned view; I didn’t vote for it when Book Club was selecting their anniversary read and then read negative review after negative review before begrudgingly picking it up last week. That being said… the book I voted for (and then read for the Alabama Pink square) was equally terrible and is getting pretty bad, although not universally reviled, reviews as well.
A lot of people are saying that maybe ten years ago, even five years ago, they may have appreciated some the “humor” in Between the Bridge and the River more than they did today. I do not think my former self would ever have found this entertaining and I am so disappointed to discover our warrior queen and myself would likely not have been book buddies.
I’m in the same boat, mostly. I wouldn’t have liked this book 10 years ago, either, but I would have had fewer reasons. I still would have hated all the lame, unfunny gay jokes and racism and *terrible* writing, but I have to admit I probably wouldn’t have been as bothered by all the women being hookers and doormats. I mean, I would have noticed, but it wouldn’t have provoked rage like it does now. This is dude-bro lit at its worst, and you were smart not to waste time finishing.
I don’t think I would have appreciated it ten years ago either; I think it would have shocked me more (now I’m old enough to just sort of shake my head and roll my eyes). I don’t think I would have been as annoyed about the lack of female characters, but I would have still struggled to find any characters I liked who were actually important to the narrative.
#6 – I spent quite a bit of time wondering if Ferguson was still too close to the point in time when he got sober to write characters with various addictions and have them be fully formed. He’s obviously pulling life experience into the writing but it didn’t seem to actually add anything to the narrative.
#2 – While the inclusion of Carl Jung didn’t bother me, and some of those interludes were OK, there were on the whole quite a few too many random digressions that didn’t feel like they added to the overall story. While I’m impressed that Ferguson managed to tie what seemed like so many different and random story lines together into a complete narrative, the story could have been a lot tighter.
#5 – I had no idea this was supposed to be the first in a series, and even if there were more, or Ferguson were to write sequels in the future, I would not waste my time reading them. As several people have already pointed out, this probably read differently when it was originally written, but feels needlessly vulgar, not to mention misogynistic, homophobic, fatphobic and just rather crass.
#7 – I didn’t mind the conversational tone, and must admit that for quite a bit of the novel, while I wasn’t really enjoying the book or any of the characters (let’s face it, they’re all pretty much awful), I kept reading out of morbid curiosity of where the plot was going and how Ferguson was going to tie it all together.
#9 – Like Narfna, I’m sad and disappointed by this book, which I voted for. I really can’t remember now what the other books in the poll were, but having also read The Dud Avocado for the Bingo, I can very safely say that AlabamaPink had vastly differing tastes in reading material to me.
#7 The conversational tone just felt lazy to me, like he couldn’t be bothered to edit and try to craft the writing, and there’s no way a no-name writer could have gotten away with it.
The conversational tone to me read like a dark parallel version of his stand-up so I wasn’t surprised, but you’re right dAvid, it didn’t show much workmanship.
I’ll admit I’m a bit of a softy for a greek chorus so the repeated phrases, sighting of very side characters across several threads of narrative made me smile, even while the terribly misogynistic, homophobic, fatphobic (as Malin mentions) language was swirling.
#4 The ‘happy ending’ rather threw me, actually. I mean, I didn’t want George to die necessarily, but he was the least awful of all the awful characters, and I think it’s just too easy that he went through all the hard stuff–confronting leaving his wife (not hard enough, IMO), saying goodbye to his daughter–only to survive. And, in reference to #5, I’m 100% sure that if there had been sequels, none of them would feature George having to be like “oops, sorry family which I abandoned for this French chick I’m banging, guess I didn’t die after all”. They would just be conveniently out of the narrative.
#2 Some of the side stories I actually really liked. To clarify, I mean the stories told by a character to another character, NOT the narrator justifying a few paragraphs on a walk-on character who is never to be seen again. (Although, I must admit that some of the continued references to characters like the serial killer did amuse me slightly). But the actual side stories were some of the most interesting parts. I think someone’s review mentioned that they hated the Crusades story, seeing it as another way for a man to be a hero when women are fridged, and that’s totally fair–but it was set during the Crusades, and I rather liked the twist with the witch.