MADreads

He hosts a TV show, he stars in movies, he writes…

October 19th, 2006 Sarah - Alicia Ashman

Is there anything that Craig Ferguson can’t do?

Ferguson, host of the Late Late Show, has also written and starred in numerous films (Saving Grace and Born Romantic among them).  In 2006 he added the title “author” to his resume with the publication of his novel Between the Bridge and the River.

I say “gratitude” because I, for whatever reasons, have pretty much given up on reading new and literary fiction.  I’d grown tired of reading fifty pages of new novels, getting bored or annoyed, and tossing them aside.  Until Ferguson’s book.

I could tell you the plot, but the book jacket does it better: “Two childhood friends from Scotland and two illegitimate half-brothers from the deep South suffer and enjoy all manner of bizarre adventures that, it turns out, are somehow interconnected…”  And that’s it really.  The story here is not really the story.  Rather, Ferguson’s writing stands as testimony to how novelists, when they’re really good, trot out eternal truths.  My favorite such truth in this title was:

“Allowances can always be made for your friends to disagree with you. Disagreement, vehement disagreement, is healthy. Debate is impossible without it. Evil does not question itself, only hope questions itself” (p. 208).

That, and this novel, are just plain good stuff.

Entry Filed under: Literary Fiction