{"id":30646,"date":"2025-03-03T18:36:07","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T22:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=30646"},"modified":"2026-05-02T01:15:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T05:15:57","slug":"colm-toibin-five-bridges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2025\/03\/03\/colm-toibin-five-bridges\/","title":{"rendered":"Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn: “Five Bridges”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Five Bridges”<\/strong><\/span>
by Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn<\/span>
from the March 10, 2025 issue of The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new story from Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn is always worth paying attention to, and this one seems especially resonant given current events.. T\u00f3ib\u00edn often writes about displacement and belonging, and I think we can expect more of that here — though with a twist. From his interview with Deborah Treisman I see that here we have an undocumented Irish man who overstayed his visa years ago and, given things going on, decides it’s time to go back to Ireland. I haven\u2019t read this one yet, but I\u2019m curious to see how T\u00f3ib\u00edn handles this premise. This is how the story begins:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

She promised that the climbing would be easy.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven for you,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow long?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn hour. Or maybe two hours. Or maybe three.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive or take?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, that\u2019s right.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul had told her two weeks earlier, on their last outing to Point Reyes Station, that he was leaving, packing up. She would be able to come to Ireland to visit him, he said now, and they should start making plans for that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve always admired T\u00f3ib\u00edn\u2019s restraint\u2014let\u2019s see how that plays out in this new story. Please feel free to leave your thoughts below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn is back in The New Yorker with “Five Bridges”\u2014what\u2019s in store?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[123,94],"tags":[1504],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-30646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colm-toibin","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-2025-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/March-10-2025-Featured-Image.jpg?fit=700%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-7Yi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30646"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31035,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30646\/revisions\/31035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30646"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}