The Bridge by Ralph Filicchia
The Bridge is an unusual novel about the brutal and savage murder of a dishwasher in the inner city. The characters, cooks, cab drivers, laundry workers, bartenders, supermarket employees etc., are not the kind of characters usually found in Christian fiction. Nor does this novel follow the usual guidelines for Christian fiction; meaning, it is not inspirational in nature nor written to help the reader gain insight into himself or anything else. It does illustrate the way of salvation, however—but no more.
Although one or two incidents in the book may seem excessively violent, the overall drift of the story is about the tenderness and simplicity of an awkward young man who discovers Jesus Christ and tries in his own limited way to live for Him. His brutal murder under the bridge that towers over his apartment in a three-family tenement is ironically the result of his own kindness to others.
As the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the early church, so his spilled blood becomes seed for the spread of the gospel in his immediate neighborhood. |
