A Thousand Country Roads: An Epilogue to The Bridges of Madison County - Hardcover

Waller, Robert James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0971766711 ISBN 13: 9780971766716

Publisher: John m Hardy Pub Co, 2002

Synopsis

At last, the rest of the story.

Epilogue: A concluding part added to a literary work.

There was something about this man that was out of the ordinary, something almost familiar about him.

Sunlight angled down and caught the right side of his face, caught the long gray hair parted in the middle and brushed back along the top and sides. The sea wind came up and blew his hair, and he reached to push it back from his face, pulled an orange suspender higher on his shoulder, adjusted the leather Swiss Army knife case on his belt. The sun passed behind a cloud, and he fell into shadow for a few seconds before sunlight again came on him. She experienced an involuntary shudder and had a powerful urge to walk outside and talk with the man.

And later:

He was glad he had come. It had not been a mistake. Here, in the old bridge, he felt a kind of serenity, and he bathed in the feeling and came quiet within himself. At that moment, he knew this place would be his home ground, the place where his ashes would someday drift out over Middle River. He hoped some of his dust would become one with the bridge and the land, and that some might wash far downstream and into larger rivers and then into all the seas he had crossed on crowded troop ships or night jets to somewhere.

--From A Thousand Country Roads

Ten years and twelve million copies after the first printing of The Bridges of Madison County, Robert James Waller brings to a poignant conclusion his story of the love affair between a wandering photographer and the conventional wife of an Iowa farmer. This stirring conclusion is for everyone who loved The Bridges of Madison County.

In A Thousand Country Roads, Robert Kincaid initially finds himself with little but memories; memories of a lonely existence lived mostly on the road and memories of Francesca Johnson, the woman whose passion he stirred so briefly and with such power.

So, with his memories pushing him, searching for something undefined, something to give meaning to the rest of his life, Kincaid takes to the road again in what becomes a journey of discovery and surprise.

With his dog Highway beside him in an old truck named Harry, Kincaid begins a long winding run back to Roseman Bridge in Madison County, Iowa, returning to the place of his great love affair.

Living her own solitary life, Francesca still visits Roseman Bridge and reflects on her days with Robert Kincaid. Cherishing the memory of the strange, wandering man who changed her world, she vows to search for him.

On the expedition he calls Last Time, Kincaid wanders through Oregon, northern California eastward to the Dakotas, and on to Iowa. Along the way, a chance encounter with a woman from his distant past reveals another dimension of his life that he could not have imagined.

Finally, in a Seattle bar called Shortys, where saxophonist Nighthawk Cummings still plays on Tuesday nights, Kincaid turns in his chair, looking inward and outward at the same time, and smiles at what he sees sitting before him.

And so it comes, the ultimate loner finds he is not as alone as he once believed.

About this title

From the Author:

Stories sometimes must wait their turn lest they clutter other things having first call. Over the years, letters arrived from the readers of The Bridges of Madison County, from men and women, teenagers, truck drivers, housewives, lawyers, pilots, and oil-rig workers.

A fair percentage of those who wrote wanted to know more about Robert Kincaid and Francesca Johnson, about their lives, what happened to them after their four days together in Madison County, Iowa. Living a quiet, contented existence on a remote, high-desert ranch, having returned to my studies of economics and mathematics and jazz guitar, I felt no need to dig out the research notes, no push to write more. Yet, somewhere, at some time, for reasons not clear, after reading one more letter requesting information, I decided to tell the rest of the story.

And I wonder always about the improbabilities, the nature of chance. The Bridges of Madison County, a small story set in a small time, a book originally written as a gift for family and friends, a book I never had any hope of getting published nor intentions of doing so when I wrote it, is in thirty-five or more languages now.

So, for those of you who asked and for anyone else with such curiosity, here is the rest of the story...I think you will find, among other things, surprise at the unexpected joy Robert Kincaid discovered late in life.

About the Author:

ROBERT JAMES WALLER grew up in the small town of Rockford, Iowa, and was educated at the University of Northern Iowa and Indiana University. He was for many years a professor at his Iowa alma mater, where he also served as Dean of the College of Business from 1979 to 1986. He lives on a remote ranch in the high desert mountains of Texas and pursues his interests in writing, photography, music, economics and mathematics. This is his tenth book.

About this edition

• Publisher: John m Hardy Pub Co
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0971766711
• ISBN 13: 9780971766716
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 181