The One-Way Bridge: A Novel

"If you liked Olive Kitteridge, you'll love The One-Way Bridge."—Lee Smith, author of The Last Girls

In her highly anticipated new novel, acclaimed literary master Cathie Pelletier returns to Mattagash, Maine, the beloved New England town where it all started.

Welcome to Mattagash, the last town in the middle of the northern Maine wilderness. The road dead-ends here, but Mattagash's citizens are fiercely proud.

Yet this simple town connected by a single one-way bridge is anything but tranquil. While neighbors bicker publicly over trivialities such as offensive mailbox designs and gossip about suspicious newcomers, they privately struggle to navigate deeper issues—scandals, loss, failed ambitions, the scars of war...and a mysterious dead body in the woods.

With her trademark wit and keen eye for detail, Pelletier has assembled an unforgettable cast of endearing and eccentric characters, from scheming mailmen and peeping toms to lovesick waitresses and loggers whose underhandedness belies their ingenuity. The citizens of Mattagash will make you laugh and cheer for them as they stumble into one another's lives and strive to define themselves in a changing world that threatens to leave them behind.

The One-Way Bridge is an extraordinary portrait of family, loneliness, and community—and the kinds of compromises we all make in the name of love.

Praise for The One-Way Bridge:

"Cathie Pelletier is one of my favorite novelists, and she's at the top of her game with The One-Way Bridge."—Wally Lamb, author of She's Come Undone

"The One-Way Bridge is the novel Cathie Pelletier fans have long awaited. Her Mattagash, Maine, is one of the most fully realized fictional locales I've ever visited, it's geography as vivid and precise as any actual place, its citizens as real and compelling as our own friends and neighbors."—Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls

"In her new book, Cathie Pelletier's brilliantly drawn, true-to-life characters break your heart and make you laugh at the same time, a rare talent indeed."—Fannie Flagg, author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café