The Bridges of Madison County - Softcover

Waller, Robert James

3.69

97,014 ratings by Goodreads

9780446364492: The Bridges of Madison County

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446364495 ISBN 13: 9780446364492

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 1995

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Fall in love with one of the bestselling novels of all time -- the legendary love story that became a beloved film starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep.
If you've ever experienced the one true love of your life, a love that for some reason could never be, you will understand why readers all over the world are so moved by this small, unknown first novel that they became a publishing phenomenon and #1 bestseller. The story of Robert Kincaid, the photographer and free spirit searching for the covered bridges of Madison County, and Francesca Johnson, the farm wife waiting for the fulfillment of a girlhood dream, The Bridges of Madison County gives voice to the longings of men and women everywhere -- and shows us what it is to love and be loved so intensely that life is never the same again.

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Review:

Probably the most irresistible love-story formula is that of true love lost, along the lines of Romeo and Juliet, Gone with the Wind, and Titanic. The Bridges of Madison County, a monster hit of the early 1990s, is that kind of torturous melodrama, writ small. Very small. Because lone wolf photographer Robert Kincaid has only four adulterous days to spend with shy Iowa farmhouse wife Francesca Johnson before her husband returns from the state fair with the kids in tow. The novella-sized affair feels much longer than it actually is, mostly because Francesca spends a lot of time gazing at her lover, who is described, by turns, as a "leopard," "peregrine," "shaman," and "star-creature." The worldly loner melts under this adoration and ends up begging her to run away with him to a safari-adventure life in exotic locales all over the world. "We'll make love in the desert sand and drink brandy on balconies in Mombasa, watching dhows from Arabia run up their sails in the first wind of morning. I'll show you lion country and an old French city on the Bay of Bengal." Alas, Francesca keeps fast to her Midwestern family values. She lets the love of her life (who will, as a result, stay true to her until he draws his last breath) drive away in his truck without her, while leaving it up to her diary to confess the affair to her children after her death. --Sumi Hahn Almquist

About the Author:

Robert James Waller lived on a remote ranch in the high-desert mountains of Texas, where he pursued his interests in writing, photography, music, economics, and mathematics. He was the New York Times bestselling author of The Bridges of Madison County, which was adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood and also as a successful Broadway musical, and Thousand Country Roads. He died in his home at age 77.

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