Charlotte's Bridge

Front Cover
iUniverse, 2004 - Fiction - 321 pages
Charlotte's Bridge tells the story of a girl's coming of age at the turn of the last century whose life is haunted by two images: One, the conjured, idyllic face of her mother who died giving birth to Charlotte; the other, the body, encased in a block of ice, of a man murdered by her father and half brothers. Against a backdrop in which constant changes produce coincidentally marvelous and frightening experiences, Charlotte Hutchison escapes the sordid, hostile, and criminal world of her childhood to create a life among the civilized people of the town across the river from her natal home.

Pursuing what she believes is the purity of her mother's legacy and desperately seeking to sever the present from her past through acceptance and love, Charlotte clutches at stability, security, and respectability. Yet a dark secret plagues her, compromising her ideals and engendering ambivalence towards her friends, her marriage, motherhood, and ultimately her religion. Each reaction, each choice, each step she takes towards the fulfillment of her dreams ironically generates doubts and trials challenging her faith in her worthiness and leaving her with a tenuous and precarious grasp on reality.

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Contents

Section 1
1
Section 2
11
Section 3
21
Section 4
34
Section 5
46
Section 6
56
Section 7
69
Section 8
77
Section 15
156
Section 16
166
Section 17
178
Section 18
194
Section 19
210
Section 20
225
Section 21
240
Section 22
256

Section 9
90
Section 10
103
Section 11
115
Section 12
126
Section 13
134
Section 14
145
Section 23
268
Section 24
279
Section 25
292
Section 26
304
Section 27
319
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