The Toll Bridge (Definitions Series) (Red Fox Young Adult Books) - Softcover

Aidan Chambers

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099503115 ISBN 13: 9780099503118

Publisher: Red Fox, 1995

Synopsis

Three teens test their sexuality and the bonds of their friendship as they discover who they are--and aren't--in a harrowing course of events that leaves all three wondering if you can ever really know anyone. This powerful novel, infused with symbolism and metaphor, will challenge the reader's very way of thinking. From the author of Dance On My Grave.

About this title

About the Author:

Aidan Chambers is the author of the highly acclaimed Dance Sequence of young-adult novels: Breatktime, Dance on My Grave, Now I Know, The Toll Bridge, Postcards from No Man’s Land, and This Is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn. Aidan won the Michael L. Printz Award and the Carnegie Medal for Postcards from No Man’s Land, and was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award, children’s literature’s highest honor, for his body of work. He’s only the second British writer to win it. He lives in the west of England with his American wife, Nancy.

From Publishers Weekly:

British writer Chambers (Dance on My Grave) stresses the "adult" in Young Adult in this finely calibrated novel. Along with its salty language and unreserved descriptions of sex, this work is informed by a sophisticated literary sensibility that will keep mature readers on their toes. Chambers twines themes from classical mythology and Kafka, crafting a haunting, multi-layered investigation of the mercurial nature of identity (serving this theme, for example, the three protagonists give one another new names). The bookish main narrator, Jan (short for Janus, the two-faced god of bridges)-formerly known as Piers-takes a job as the keeper of a toll bridge on a private estate far from his stultifying home. There he is befriended by Tess (originally Katharine), the caretaker's daughter. Enter Adam (birth name Aston), a roguishly handsome drifter, who moves into the gatekeeper's cottage with Jan, and the triangle is complete. Against his better judgment, Jan, like Tess, falls under Adam's spell. "Not just because the sight of him turned me on but because I'm human," he explains. "The fact is we're all succored by sex, and some of us are finally suckered by it too." A torrent of dramatic developments leads to a surprise resolution, in which Jan and Tess find out just how "suckered" they have been. Provocative in the best sense, this novel suggests even more than its intricate plot spells out, leaving readers with much for pleasurable contemplation. Ages 13-up.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Red Fox
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0099503115
• ISBN 13: 9780099503118
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224