Family is Everything: Bridge of Clay

Family is everything. Without it, one cannot be fully complete or content. That is why family stays together, always. However, there are times that come when it is broken. Members, loved ones, parents, all separate, leaving such a bright and treasured past behind. Everyone’s lives are scattered and turned completely upside down. At these tough times, is it important to forget all differences and all your struggles, and to come back to each other? Is it important to mend the wounds to heal the family love and connection and become who you were before? These are some of the things that are discussed in the most recent book I read, Bridge of Clay, by Markus Zusak, also the author of The Book Thief.

The narrator of this book is the eldest brother, Matthew, of the five Dunbar brothers. Following him by age are Rory, Henry, Clay, and Tommy, whom each have their very own purpose in the adult-free house. Rory and Henry are the loud-natured and rough characters, the ones with terrible movie choices from the 1980s; Clay is the one who emerges from the shadows, the lover of his parents’ stories, and the central character of the book; and Tommy, the youngest, is the collector of animals like, Achilles the mule, Hector the cat, and Rosy the dog. Matthew, being the eldest and, supposedly, the most responsible, introduces his entire broken-up family of four other brothers and two disappeared parents. As to what “disappeared” means, it is their mother, Penelope, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, who died of cancer, and their father, Michael Dunbar or mostly referred to as the “Murderer”, who left his five sons to grieve his wife’s death, the crime he was accused off by his sons, that ultimately tore the entire family apart.

Bridge of Clay tells the story of Penelope, Michael, and their second youngest son, Clay. Penelope was born and brought up in eastern Europe by her father, who taught her how to play the piano so perfectly, right until her fingers hurt. She played the Mozart and Beethoven beautifully and later on attempted to teach them to her five sons, who never cared more of the instrument. Her father always read to her from two books, The Odyssey and The Iliad, from which she read to her five sons, later on. Penelope, or called ‘Penny’ by her sons and husband, was also the owner of many nicknames, such as The Mistake Maker, for all the times she made a mistake when playing the piano; or the Broken-nosed Bride, for when she broke her nose a day before her wedding. As for Michael, he was from a rural town with a heartbreaking past of a first wife who left him over his inability to change. Michael was a painter who had painted his first wife, but never his second. It was over a delivery error of a piano that he met Penelope. From there, their story began, which leads to Clay. Clay was one of Michael’s and Penny’s only son who loved the stories of his parents’ past. He always asked them over and over to recite a different one each time, depending on what he wanted to hear. Clay was the quietest and the one who always stood behind his brothers. He was a runner, a winner at the States, and the one who betrayed his brothers.

The narrative of the book begins when the father, who had already left, comes back into the life of his five sons, to ask for help to build a bridge. Of all five, it is Clay that leaves with him, which is seen as the utmost family betrayal. Through the length of the book, the building of the bridge is delayed till the very end particularly to tell the story of Penelope, Michael, and Clay. I will not obviously describe each story as there is too much detail and I don’t want to ruin everything. However, the most important part of this entire book is that the entire construction of the bridge is only a slight image of the author’s illustration of a much larger metaphor; the opportunity for the family to reconnect with their lost mother and wife, Penelope, and to relink themselves to each other, to seal the wounds that had been opened. The metaphor resides in the title of the book, that it is Clay who reaches out to his long-lost father to bring him back to his five helpless and abandoned sons, over a building of a bridge. It is said by another character in the book that the bridge that will be built, will not be made of wood or metal or stones, but of Clay.

As mentioned in the introduction, Bridge of Clay is about a family’s journey of breaking apart, but eventually, recovering and restoring the love and bonds they had. After reading this stunning and admirable book, I have the answers to my questions. It is indeed very important to forget all your differences and struggles and to come back to your family, just as Michael Dunbar and Clay had done.
In the end, Bridge of Clay is one of Markus Zusak’s most beautifully written book, filled with touching words that can change the reader’s perspective on a lot of things about life. I will definitely recommend this remarkable young adult read, giving it a nine out of 10.

Photo Source: Amazon.com (retrieved from Google Images)