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The Bridge Ladies: A Memoir Audiobook
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Publisher Description
A fifty-year-old Bridge game provides an unexpected way to cross the generational divide between a daughter and her mother. Betsy Lerner takes us on a powerfully personal literary journey, where we learn a little about Bridge and a lot about life.
After a lifetime defining herself in contrast to her mother’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” generation, Lerner finds herself back in her childhood home, not five miles from the mother she spent decades avoiding. When Roz needs help after surgery, it falls to Betsy to take care of her. She expected a week of tense civility; what she got instead were the Bridge Ladies. Impressed by their loyalty, she saw something her generation lacked. Facebook was great, but it wouldn’t deliver a pot roast.
Tentatively at first, Betsy becomes a regular at her mother’s Monday Bridge club. Through her friendships with the ladies, she is finally able to face years of misunderstandings and family tragedy, the Bridge table becoming the common ground she and Roz never had.
By turns darkly funny and deeply moving, The Bridge Ladies is the unforgettable story of a hard-won—but never-too-late—bond between mother and daughter.
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“Lerner probes marriage, career, motherhood, depression, aging, death, religion, and sex, discovering that, although the Bridge Ladies’ generation differs from hers, they share common values of love and kinship. This beautifully written, bittersweet story of ladies of a certain age and era will have wide appeal.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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“A poignant, humorous, and often painful struggle through the pageantry of playing cards; a woman’s face on every one.”
— Patti Smith, New York Times bestselling author -
“A searching, funny, warm memoir.”
— O, The Oprah Magazine -
“Lerner’s memoir makes a case for spending time together under the rules of neutrality imposed by a game…The bridge ladies are there for one another, even as they keep their feelings to themselves and play on.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“Heartfelt and affecting.”
— Washington Post -
“A generous and honest examination; she honors these women’s lives.”
— Boston Globe -
“An uplifting account of a baby boomer’s attempt to understand her mother’s generation…The result is candid, fresh, and enlightening.”
— Providence Journal -
“Lerner captures an era that has long since faded, but it is a time period that gave birth to today’s modern woman…Nostalgic stories from women who came of age before feminism and how they helped a daughter bond with her mother.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Orlagh Cassidy delivers Betsy Lerner’s tender memoir with warmth and affection…[and] she’s terrific in this touching story.”
— AudioFile
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About Betsy Lerner
Betsy Lerner is the author of The Forest for the Trees and Food and Loathing. She is a recipient of the Thomas Wolfe Poetry Prize, an Academy of American Poets Poetry Prize, and the Tony Godwin Prize for Editors, and was selected as one of PEN’s Emerging Writers. Lerner is a partner with the literary agency Dunow, Carlson & Lerner and resides in New Haven, Connecticut.
About Orlagh Cassidy
Orlagh Cassidy, an American actress of stage, television, and film, is an audiobook narrator who has twice won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration, as well as many AudioFile Earphones Awards. She is a graduate of SUNY at Purchase and a recipient of the Princess Grace Foundation Scholarship. She has been seen on and off Broadway and in films, including Definitely Maybe and Calling It Quits. Her television credits include roles in Law & Order and Sex and the City and as Doris Wolfe on Guiding Light.