Thalia Book Club: Markus Zusak, Bridge of Clay

I’ll admit, I started *Bridge of Clay* skeptical. Zusak’s last novel was a masterpiece, but 13 years apart breeds impatience—especially when the hype machine cranks up the volume before the book even hits shelves. The audiobook, narrated by MJ Franklin and Brian Wiles, convinced me to drop my guard. Franklin’s performance is a marvel; he doesn’t just read Zusak’s meandering, poetic sentences—he *performs* them, his voice dropping into a rasp for the brothers’ roughhousing or suddenly soaring when the narrative veers into mythic territory. Wiles, meanwhile, serves as the perfect counterbalance, his measured tone keeping the emotional whiplash from feeling indulgent. That said, the production isn’t flawless. The audiobook clocks in at just 86 minutes, which means Zusak’s trademark tangents—those gorgeous, digressive paragraphs that make his prose feel like a living thing—are ruthlessly trimmed. The result is a tighter listen, but some of the novel’s soul feels amputated. Still, if you’re after a gut-punch of a family saga told with operatic flair, this is it. Just don’t expect the same sprawling indulgence as *The Book Thief*.