What is it about puppeteering and good storytelling? First, the insanely wonderful movie BEING JOHN MALKOVICH used puppets to move forward its quirky narrative, and now Gregory Frost’s intense and memorable SHADOWBRIDGE uses the art of puppeteering not just as a story device, but to explore the meaning of culturally shared tales and what they mean to each of us in our own lives, even isolated from other societies that have spawned similar stories of their own.
SHADOWBRIDGE introduces us to Leodora, whose stage name is Jax, a lonely and somewhat damaged young woman who seeks more excitement than what can be found in her backwater village. Afraid of her alcoholic and abusive uncle, and repressed by the antediluvian mores of where she lives, she hopes for some form of release. It comes with the realization that she is expert at working puppets and telling stories with them.
Her mentor in this art is Soter, an equally alcoholic mysterious learned man who is hiding out in the area. Eventually, Leodora finds the courage to escape her situation and make her life on the spans.
The world of SHADOWBRIDGE is intriguing. It’s made up of hundreds of thousands of successive bridge spans, some interconnected in gigantic spirals, but there seem to be other spirals of spans as well, and people can sail between them, docking at the bottom of the bridge and climbing long sets of steps to get to the towns above. Each span seems to have its own culture, from the fancy flight buildings made out of sugar in the dilapidated fairy-tale world of Colemaigne, to the Japanese-inspired Hiyakiyako, to the brutal and backward Bouyan, where we first met our main character.
This book — the first in what is scheduled to be a two-part effort; the second is titled LORD TOPHET — sets the stage with thoughtful characterizations and multiple mysteries. Leodora is in search of the meaning of her own and her parents’ lives, and we are given tantalizing glimpses into what they may have been. Soter is on the run from something which strikes fear in almost everyone, yet we know very little of what that is by the end of the novel. And the third companion in this group, Diverus the musician, seems to be searching for the meaning of what marks him out from the rest: a gift from the gods that allows him to play any instrument and play it beautifully.
Driving all this adventure forward are the tales Frost chooses to share: the ones that Jax performs with her puppets in local taverns and theaters. As Jax asks locals to share their stories, we frequently get to hear them firsthand (sometimes from plain folks, sometimes from the gods themselves). And unusually, they are fascinating, well-written and very representative of certain universally recognized myth motifs (creation stories, explanations of death, etc.). These micro-stories are tremendously well done, and go a long way to fleshing out the spiritual background of the lives of the people on the various spans.
I was captivated by this tale, and eagerly look forward to the next book. It’s a storyteller’s work, professionally and smoothly written, with endearing and likable characters. Definitely recommended. —Mark Rose
