The One-Way Bridge

Cathie Pelletier

Jan 2013 · Sourcebooks, Inc.

About this ebook

"Cathie Pelletier is one of my favorite novelists, and she's at the top of her game with The One-Way Bridge."--Wally Lamb, author of She's Come Undone

In her highly anticipated new novel, acclaimed literary master Cathie Pelletier returns to Mattagash, Maine, the beloved New England town where it all started.

Welcome to Mattagash, the last town in the middle of the northern Maine wilderness. The road dead-ends here, but Mattagash's citizens are fiercely proud.

Yet this simple town connected by a single one-way bridge is anything but tranquil. While neighbors bicker publicly over trivialities such as offensive mailbox designs and gossip about suspicious newcomers, they privately struggle to navigate deeper issues--scandals, loss, failed ambitions, the scars of war...and a mysterious dead body in the woods.

With her trademark wit and keen eye for detail, Pelletier has assembled an unforgettable cast of endearing and eccentric characters, from scheming mailmen and peeping toms to lovesick waitresses and loggers whose underhandedness belies their ingenuity. The citizens of Mattagash will make you laugh and cheer for them as they stumble into one another's lives and strive to define themselves in a changing world that threatens to leave them behind.

The One-Way Bridge is an extraordinary portrait of family, loneliness, and community--and the kinds of compromises we all make in the name of love.

Praise for The One-Way Bridge:

"The One-Way Bridge is the novel Cathie Pelletier fans have long awaited. Her Mattagash, Maine, is one of the most fully realized fictional locales I've ever visited, it's geography as vivid and precise as any actual place, its citizens as real and compelling as our own friends and neighbors."--Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls

"In her new book, Cathie Pelletier's brilliantly drawn, true-to-life characters break your heart and make you laugh at the same time, a rare talent indeed."--Fannie Flagg, author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Caf

About the author

Cathie Pelletier was born in Allagash, Maine in 1953. She received a B.A. from the University of Maine in 1976. She has written books under her own name and the pseudonym K. C. McKinnon. The books written under her own name include The Funeral Makers, A Marriage Made at Woodstock, The Summer Experiment, and A Year After Henry. She has received several awards including the New England Booksellers Award for The Weight of Winter and the 2006 Paterson Prize for Running the Bulls. Under the pseudonym of K. C. McKinnon she wrote two novels, Dancing at the Harvest Moon and Candles on Bay Street. Both were adapted into television movies by CBS and Hallmark respectively. She writes country music lyrics. She has co-written several books with singers including 100 Ways to Beat the Blues with Tanya Tucker, The Christmas Note with Skeeter Davis, and The Ragin' Cajun with Doug Kershaw.