The Bridge

The man who wakes up in the extraordinary world of a bridge has amnesia, and his doctor doesn't seem to want to cure him. Does it matter? Exploring the bridge occupies most of his days. But at night there are his dreams. Dreams in which desperate men drive sealed carriages across barren mountains to a bizarre rendezvous; an illiterate barbarian storms an enchanted tower under a stream of verbal abuse; and broken men walk forever over bridges without end, taunted by visions of a doomed sexuality.

Lying in bed unconscious after an accident wouldn't be much fun, you'd think. Oh yes? It depends who and what you've left behind.

Which is the stranger reality, day or night? Frequently hilarious and consistently disturbing, THE BRIDGE is a novel of outrageous contrasts, constructed chaos and elegant absurdities.

“It's compulsive reading and highly recommended.-- Sunday TODAY”

Iain Banks had a restless and expansive imagination; no two books ever ploughed the same furrow, which made any new title all the more exciting, and makes picking a favourite all the more challenging. If I could take only one Iain Banks book to my desert island, it would be The Bridge... It's a demanding, exciting, thought-provoking book written in evocative, often lyrical prose. Part of the reason I love it so much is the setting - the Forth Bridge that links Fife, where I grew up, with Edinburgh, where I live now -- Val McDermid Guardian
Great artistry, great virtuosity... great exuberance New Statesman
The Bridge is serious, but playful; it is full of throwaway jokes, minor tangles for the reader/writer to sort out, political/cultural references to the kind of reality that rarely gets into British literature, and nuggets of surprising truth juxtaposed with outrageous lies... convincing in a way too little fantasy or mainstream literature is City Limits

Iain Banks came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, THE WASP FACTORY, in 1984. He has since gained enormous popular and critical acclaim for both his mainstream and his science fiction novels.

'An exceptional talent . . . a totally absorbing read' The Times A man lies in a coma after a near-fatal accident. His body broken, his memory vanished, he finds himself in the surreal world of the bridge - a world free of the usual constraints of time and space, a world where dream and fantasy, past and future, fuse. Who is this man? Where is he? Is he more dead than alive? Or has he never been so alive before? 'A stunning book. Banks' powerful imagination is joined to a rare ability to be truly funny while exploring a nightmare world' Sunday Times

The man who wakes up in the extraordinary world of a bridge has amnesia, and his doctor doesn't seem to want to cure him. Does it matter? Exploring the bridge occupies most of his days. But at night there are his dreams. Dreams in which desperate men drive sealed carriages across barren mountains to a bizarre rendezvous; an illiterate barbarian storms an enchanted tower under a stream of verbal abuse; and broken men walk forever over bridges without end, taunted by visions of a doomed sexuality.Lying in bed unconscious after an accident wouldn't be much fun, you'd think. Oh yes? It depends who and what you've left behind.Which is the stranger reality, day or night? Frequently hilarious and consistently disturbing, THE BRIDGE is a novel of outrageous contrasts, constructed chaos and elegant absurdities.

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