When Markus Zusak’s Bridge of Clay came out in 2018, the publisher (Picador) described it as “the most anticipated book of the decade.” While such superlatives may be dismissed as “puff” or “hype”, in this case it had been thirteen years since The Book Thief, which took the reading world by storm and became an international best seller.

Writing a book of such magnitude and impact is a hard act to follow, so it’s not surprising Markus Zusak took the time to ensure the next book was what he wanted. (Although I note this is entirely an assumption on my part!) Admittedly, The Messenger was on our shelves in 2013, but it was a republication of a work (2002) that preceded The Book Thief.

Perhaps because of the time the author was prepared to give Bridge of Clay, it is very definitely not a reprise of The Book Thief. If comparisons were to be made, I would say it more closely resembles The Messenger, being set in (mostly) contemporary Australia. Otherwise it’s entirely its own book, and in my view of far greater emotional depth and breadth than The Messenger. (Although I liked that well enough, as per my post here.)

So what, you may be wondering, is Bridge of Clay all about… Well, firstly, it’s about a family, and about the ties that bind us together and the forces that tear us apart, not least love and grief, hope and fear, life and death. Yep, you’ve got it: this is in no sense a small book.

Bridge of Clay is also the story of the five brothers that are the children of this particular family and how they survive—or endeavour to survive—the death of their mother, Penny, and loss of their father, Michael. At which point I shall immediately point to one of the more obvious distinctions between The Book Thief and this book (besides WW2 Germany and contemporary Australia), which is that the former centered on an orphaned tween/teen girl, while Bridge of Clay is all about these five boys, stretching in age from tween to around twenty, and grounded in their various views of the world. The two central points-of-view, though, are that of Clay, the fourth brother, and Matthew, the eldest brother and main narrator.

This is not to say that there are no significant women characters in the book: Abbey Hanley and Penny Lesciuszko, Carey Novac and Claudia Kirkby, all fit that bill. None are ciphers in the scope of the story, either, which is also an account of first loves and second, about romance and loves that endure. Primarily, though, it’s the five brothers, the Dunbar boys, that are the core of the book.

Incidentally, Bridge of Clay is also a book about a menagerie of animals and about horse racing, about bridges and Michelangelo, but primarily, it’s a book about survival. So maybe, that being said, there is a nexis between The Book Thief and Bridge of Clay after all, if the reader digs deep enough.

I should also say that I found it much harder to get into Bridge of Clay than I recall with The Book Thief or The Messenger. I believe that’s because the story moves around a lot at the beginning, between the characters but also between past and present. I felt on the verge of giving up, when the the elements finally started to come together for me and from that point on (about a quarter to a third of the way through) I was hooked.

So my recommendation, if a reader should feel similarly, would be to persist. Because my final evaluation, on reaching the end, was: “Yeah, I really enjoyed that.” And if I wanted to encapsulate the book in a quote, I would actually go for the very last line:

“A Dunbar boy could do many things, but he should always be sure to come home.”

In terms of comparative reading, I would say that in addition to Markus Zusak’s two preceding novels, if you’ve enjoyed Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, Melina Marchetta’s Jellicoe Road, Christos Tsiolkas’s The Slap, or Commonwealth by Ann Patchett, then you may enjoy Bridge of Clay, too.

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Disclosure:
I read an an uncorrected proof copy, 579 pp, of Bridge of Clay, supplied by the publisher’s representative toward the end of last year because “she couldn’t believe I hadn’t read it yet.” But similarly to Deeplight (as posted here) I enjoyed it so much I bought a copy for one of my brothers, as a Christmas present.