The Bridge on Beer River by Terry Tierney

Making love near nutated African violets on the
last day of the world was a possibility we never discussed.

- Terry Tierney, The Bridge on Beer River

The Bridge on Beer River follows the life of Curt, an ex-Marine who lives in Binghamton, New York, during the 1980s. Tall and powerful, Curt once worked in construction, but we meet him while he is driving a forklift for a local dairy. Pegged as a blue-collar worker by everyone that meets him, he would rather be in a job that uses his brain instead of his brawn. Living in the Rust Belt during the Reagan Era, Curt struggles to keep a job in the same way he struggles to keep a girlfriend.

Curt divides his time between working at the dairy and drinking Genesee Cream Ale in a local dive called Mother's, co-owned by Debby and her brother Daryl who want to raise the money to turn Mother's into a nice restaurant. His drinking buddies include Artie, another war vet who uses the loss of his leg to bum beers off of other patrons, and Carl, a writer for the local newspaper who has wild gray hair like Einstein's. On Wednesday nights, Freddy, the local bookie, and closet millionaire, makes the rounds of the bars taking bets on football games.

Work at the dairy comes with all the office politics and romances you would expect in a small town. Co-worker Renee gets rides to work from Curt, angering her rich boyfriend Anton and his cop brother. Their boss, Sherman, would like to fire Curt due to his drinking, but he appreciates that Curt volunteers his time helping the accountant Julie and the computer guru, a petite Goth woman who everyone calls the Vampire. When Curt can't get regular work at the dairy, he does odd jobs for Freddy, the bookie. 

Curt battles a drinking problem and needs anger management counseling. But he is generous and wants to solve everyone's problems, and he isn't afraid to bend the law to get the job done. 

So much of Curt's story hit home for me, even down to the mutated African violets. I started working full-time in 1981, the year that Reagan began his 8 years as president and about the same time that Curt was studying computing through a correspondence course. I got swept up in the coding frenzy as companies were starting to computerize and automate their systems, like the dairy in Beer River. Like Curt, I did my share of punching computer cards and using VMS commands on a PDP main frame. My brother was an ex-Marine who had served in Vietnam, as did my husband and many of my coworkers. Beer was not my drink, but in the late 1980s, I spent a lot of time in blue-collar bars in college towns, drinking tequila and slipping out to someone's van to smoke pot. It was a time when, regardless of who were a couple when they came to the bar, you couldn't predict who would go home together. In many ways, reading Curt’s story was like reading my own.

This novel-in-stories is broken into five parts, each with several chapters. The stories were originally published in literary magazines, but Tierney has done a masterful job melding them into a single narrative. The writing is crisp, the characters well developed, and the place and story are reminiscent of William Kennedy's Albany Cycle. One reviewer likened Beer River to the work of Bukowski, but I found Curt much more sympathetic than Bukowski's characters.

I think The Bridge on Beer River would appeal to those who want their heroes to be down to earth and somewhat flawed. Readers of Kent Haruf and Ron McLarty would appreciate this book by Terry Tierney.

The publisher, Unsolicited Press, sent me this book through LibraryThing in exchange for a review. The book was released on July 11, 2023.