Full Description
It's 1963 and a group of young pacifists have signed up to change the world, volunteering to build a small road bridge for a community near Locri, a town in Calabria, southern Italy.These disparate characters begin as comrades working for a common cause, yet their ideals are tested in arguments over the collective good versus the rights of the individual, while personal desires quickly create further schism. The touch paper is lit when one of the volunteers, Italian heiress Isabella, who has affairs with two members of the group, disappears in an area notorious for the presence of the 'Ndrangheta mafia. Instead of murder or kidnapping for ransom could there be a much simpler explanation? The Bridge at Locri is, on one level, a mystery novel, in which the mystery is approached from the different perspectives of six narrators. On another, it's a book which spans sixty years and charts the stories of the principal characters who, after Locri, go back to their own countries, with the missing but ever-present Isabella looming over all their lives. This elegant page-turning novel draws you into a wider view, offering a panorama of six decades of our history brought to us by the voices of intelligent, passionate and flawed characters from different corners of the world: Bosnia, East Germany, Colombia, Australia, Italy, Malawi and England.
Contents
CONTENTS
Dedication vii
PART ONE
RETURN TO LOCRI 2023 3
PART TWO
BUILDING THE BRIDGE 1963 15
PART THREE
ISABELLA'S JOURNAL 1963 81
PART FOUR
THE YEARS BETWEEN
Chapter One 1968 Amar 111
Chapter Two 1973 Oliver 127
Chapter Three 1975 Thomas 143
Chapter Four 1983 Maria 159
Chapter Five 1989 Adam 173
Chapter Six 1995 Amar 187
Chapter Seven 2003 Oliver 205
Chapter Eight 2008 Thomas 221
Chapter Nine 2013 Maria 233
Chapter Ten 2018 Adam 249
PART FIVE
A MEETING IN LOCRI 2023 269
Afterword 286
