THE NIGHT THE BRIDGE CRIED

A young outcast confronts small-town legacies and a football obsession in this novel.

Set against the backdrop of Grunion Glade, Ohio—a community of just over 1,000 people—this lively tale opens in a cemetery outside of town. It is told through the eyes of Bob Skinner Jr., cousin to the diminutive William Feely. From the start, Jones establishes the small town as more of a myth than a real locale, with Grunion Glade’s football obsession leading its high school team to win the league championship every year. William, described as a “troublemaker from the get-go,” grows up under the shadow of his father’s goal of making him a football star. By his 6th birthday, William is still only as tall as a 3-year-old. As the story moves through the 1950s and the two young boys’ childhoods, Bob Jr. is expected to protect his cousin from bullying and small-town cruelty. Tragedy strikes with the death of William’s mother. Yet the boy’s grief “didn’t do anything to blunt his hatred of football. If anything, it made things worse. He’d taken to standing on street corners and giving speeches on why football was a senseless waste of time.” The narrative accelerates when Bob Jr. and William stumble upon a mystery: While researching a play for the town’s centennial, they discover missing pages from Martha Grunion’s diary chronicling a long-ago double wedding. Their search for these forgotten pieces of town history reveals scandals that implicate prominent families and ripple through generations. They must decide what they will do with the information and how it might affect their community. While the story remains consistent and engaging, it is sometimes tonally off-kilter. Comic moments punctuate an otherwise straight, often melodramatic narrative, which makes some backstory details, particularly the football obsession, feel overblown. There are regular black-and-white illustrations by Massuia that also fill in some aspects of the characters but seem an odd choice for a book pitched to adult readers. Still, the story remains engrossing from start to finish, even if parts of the convoluted town lore are less compelling than William’s and his cousin’s early childhoods.

Overstuffed but entertaining, for readers pining for a tale in the vein of Peyton Place.